Shillong's elite club polluting Ward's Lake

SHILLONG: The oldest and most scenic man-made lake in Shillong is being polluted by the effluents emanating from one of the city's oldest and most elite clubs. Replying to a in the legislative assembly in the Meghalaya capital on Thursday, Prestone Tynsong, minister of forests and environment, said: "Shillong Club continues to release untreated effluence into Ward's Lake."

Informing that the government was notified that refuse from the club was being dumped in the lake by the Meghalaya Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) in 2006, the minister said the divisional forest officer (social forestry) of Shillong had convened a joint inspection in 2008, wherein pollution from two other sources - Parking Lot (developed by Meghalaya Urban Development Authority and run by the Shillong Municipal Board) and Lake View Inn Hotel - was also brought to light. Directions were also issued to the club and hotel to take necessary action to stop discharge of untreated waste into the lake.

Subsequently a joint team comprising officials and representatives of the "polluters" proposed installation of a "common conduit" that would pass through the lake, "internal construction" of a 'nullah' and waste-water treatment plant within the premises of the club and the hotel. The minister informed that while Lake View Inn Hotel has fully complied with the direction to establish and operate pollution control/abatement measures, M/s H K Loungani and Company, managing agent of the "hotel part" of the Shillong Club have only partially fulfilled the directions. "But the Shillong Club Limited management in-charge of the staff quarters has not taken any step to prevent and stop discharge of effluence to the Ward's Lake," the minister said, adding that fish in the lake were dying due to this.

The minister asserted that the state government, exercising powers under Section 5 of the Environment Protection Act, 1986, will issue direction for closure, prohibition or regulation, operation or process; or stoppage or regulation of supply of electricity, water or any other service if the Shillong Club and the Shillong Municipal Board fail to take preventive and curative steps to control and abate pollution to the Ward's Lake within a "reasonable time that may be given to them".