The five major lakes of Nainital — Naini, Bhimtal, Naukuchiyatal, Saattal and Khurpatal — which are also popular tourism destinations will soon get a facelift.
The district irrigation department has been given the responsibility to beautify these lakes.
So, to add to the beauty of the aforesaid lakes by way of putting in place necessary basic infrastructure around these lakes that is commensurate with tourist requirements, the District Irrigation department has demanded Rs 35 crore from the Centre.
The officials of the Irrigation department disclosed a proposal demanding Rs 35 crore for beautification of these lakes had been submitted to the Centre. After the funds were released works would be started to beautify these lakes, they maintained. Interestingly, though successive State Governments had been announcing things for years much has not been done on the ground.
Only a few steps taken so far to give a facelift to the natural tourist spots include introducing aeration system to the Nainital lake for maintaining its water quality and sanitation around the Nainital city and building a fish aquarium at the island located in the Bhimtal lake.
But in the absence of basic facilities like proper road connectivity, necessary boost has not been given to the tourism sector in the region over the years.
The tour operators here are of the view that providing better road connectivity around the lakes and establishing things like IT parks and ropeways around these hill tourist destinations could have come in handy to attract more tourists. But precious little has been done, they said.
Apart from proving necessary basic infrastructure, the focus of this beautification campaign would also be on cleanliness. The lake Development Authority (lDA) has already undertaken its “Mission Butter Fly’ campaign to maintain cleanliness of Naini lake and Nainital city and adjoining areas like Bhimtal city being tourist hot spots.
As part of this proposed lake beautification campaign, the officials have also emphasised on the need to prevent civic wastes into Naini lake.
They have also called for developing a permanent aeration system for Naini lake as presently the lDA has to spend Rs 40 lakh to maintain aeration of Nainital lake per year.