Panzath water body needs more than public campaign to clean & create healthy habitat for fish: Khurshid Ganai

Retired IAS officer Khurshid Ahmed Ganai has said that hundreds of fish have died inside the water body at Panzath, Qazigund due to official neglect. Although the villagers are once in while taking up cleaning on halashiri basis but that is not sufficient. There is too much of silt and lot of sewage seems to be flowing into the water body making it an extremely difficult habitat for fish, says Ganai, who visited the village on June 27 along with his two colleagues Manzoor Ahmed Tak,  former Chief Conservator of Forests and Manzoor Ahmed Salroo,  former Power Development Commissioner. The trio immediately brought the matter to the notice of the concerned authorities but barring a team of fisheries experts deputed by VC, SKUAST to study the causes of large scale deaths of fish, there has been no action from the Jal Shakti ( PHE), Irrigation or Fisheries departments. Ganai, who spoke to Greater Kashmir, hoped that the concerned engineering department will remove the silt and the muck from the water body which is clearly beyond the occasional voluntary cleaning undertaken by the villagers of Panzath. Ganai also hoped that the Jal Shakti and Irrigation departments will coordinate well and soon enough to ensure clean drinking water for nearly 38 schemes and a thriving habitat for the fish.