Word: udaipur
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...lakes - which earned Udaipur the nickname the "Venice of the East" - have been a major tourist magnet in the past few years, and building places for tourists to sleep has accelerated the problem. With the Oberoi Udaivilas luxury hotel opening in 2000 and the Leela Palace, which opened in April, both just a few feet from the lake, the doors have opened for other shoreline hotel and residential development. "The big guys essentially bought their way past standing lakeshore-encroachment laws," says Razdan. "That created a domino effect. Smaller entrepreneurs with money muscle and political connections asked...
...books has been slow to nonexistent. In the absence of effective public management, some 14 local environmental groups have been working in different ways to preserve the waters; a few have even filed lawsuits against local and state governing boards seeking urgent judicial intervention to clean up Udaipur's lakes and check the flow of pollutants into these water bodies. Following up on suits that began in 1982, the state's high court directed the government in 2007 to consider establishing a Lakes Development Authority, implement a "no-construction zone," undertake continuous de-silting steps and other restrictive measures...
...Concerned citizens like Mewar and Razdan say that it's mostly through their efforts that some improvements have been made over the past 20 years. "Previously there were 100 latrines hanging directly over the lakes," says Razdan, an environmental enthusiast who heads Udaipur's Lake Conservation Society. Until six years ago, 25 tons of solid waste and 6 million liters of raw sewage were dumped into the lakes each day. Now, he says, those numbers have been reduced by 60%. But the local government has made an impact too: a drainage system, built by Udaipur's Urban Improvement Trust...
...area's huge tourist potential could also be part of a solution. In July, Udaipur earned the "world's best city" rating in a Travel & Leisure poll. Last year 1.2 million tourists visited the city; Rajasthan officials estimate tourism here jumped 10% last year. But when water levels drop so low that you can drive a jeep to the two hotels that are built in the middle of the lake - as they did as recently as July - so does the appeal of the destination. Deforestation around the lakes disrupts the flow of water, and waste dumping has caused "hot spots...
...These ideas and others were addressed last month at a one-day conference exploring integrated lake-basin management for the Udaipur lakes, hosted by Mewar at his Fateh Prakash Hotel beside Lake Pichola. Masahisa Nakamura, director of the Center for Sustainability and Environment at Japan's Shiga University and chairman of the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation's scientific committee, identified several human factors that are to blame for the lakes' sorry state: deforestation, construction of new hotels and private homes too close to the lakes, sewage and waste dumping, and poor governance, bribes and corruption. Nakamura was particularly critical...