The only water palace in Eastern India may crumble any day, as the lake on which it stands is slowly shrinking-------- The only water palace in Eastern India may crumble any day, as the lake on which it stands is slowly shrinking As the winter chill eases out, Sadhan Das rows his country boat humming lines of a popular folk number. Sadhan, an octogenarian fisherman, lives on the bank of Rudrasagar Lake. On its serene water stands Neer Mahal - the only water palace in eastern India and the second in the country after Jal Mahal in Rajasthan. "When my father came here, there were only 15-odd families. Now more than 2 lakh people are dependent on this lake. We earn our living by fishing and ferrying tourists to the water palace," Sadhan says as he rubs away water drops from his grey hairs. Sadhan's father had settled on the bank of Rudrasagar way back in 1940. The lake has taken care of their livelihood but now Sadhan is worried for the generations to come. "Now that the lake is shrinking, water level is going down drastically. The palace might crumble any day. With the lake dying, we will also be left to die," Sadhan says. Rudrasagar Lake, located about 55 km from Tripura's capital Agartala in West Tripura's nondescript Melaghar town, had 5.3 square kms of water in 1930 when the then illustrious ruler of erstwhile princely state of Tripura Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya commissioned the British company Martin and Burns to construct a summer resort for him. Martin and Burns took nine long years to complete the palace in the middle of the lake. The palace is a spectacle beyond doubt. The floating castle has 24 rooms in the 400-metre long building. The architecture of the palace is a fascinating blend of Hindu and Muslim traditions. A hot tourist destination - Neer Mahal attracts tourists round the year from farthest stretches of the globe and generates huge revenue for the state government. The fishermen of Rudrasagar generate more than Rs 25 lakh business every year, yet all is not well for the people who depend on the lake for their livelihood. The lake has shrunk nearly 42 per cent since 1955. Largely because of the slipshod approach of the Centre and the state, very little has been done for the restoration of the palace and conservation of Rudrasagar Lake that was declared a national lake in 1993. "The lake is dying. It has been encroached upon. Heavy siltation of river Gumti and pollution has made Rudrasagar shrink, and the palace is in very bad shape," says Jiten Paul, head of Mukta Mancha, an association of Tripura's intellectuals that has been voicing loud for the conservation of the lake and the palace. The wetland area of Rudrasagar has shrunk to nearly 2 square kms. Over the last five decades, as human activity grew along the banks of the lake, it started to take a toll on the ecological balance of the wetland. Hundreds of migrant families from erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) started to enter the area from early 1950s. They settled along the banks of Rudrasagar Lake. The growth in settlements resulted in extension of agricultural activities at the cost of the lake. "The human activities in upstream should be checked, pollution in and around the lake should be minimized and the people living on the bank of the lake should be made aware of how their daily practices are acting as a slow-poison for the lake," says Biswendu Bhattacharya, a journalist. Soil erosion due to deforestation around the catchments area of the lake has also caused massive siltation, Biswendu adds. While sedimentation, land-grabbing and pollution have threatened the aquatic flora and fauna of the wetland, coming up of illegal brick kilns in the area has been the last nail in the coffin, not to forget the presence of a cremation ground on the bank of the lake. "We have seen that tourists dump rubbish into the water and fuel leaks out of the motorboat engines polluting the lake. The waste materials of the brick kilns also add to the worries. Fishes are dying in the lake. Earlier, during winter lots of migratory birds used to flock to this lake but now their number has decreased. The palace has also lost its charm and needs restoration," says Ashes Gupta, a noted film maker who has made a short film on the dwindling lake. The shrinking of the lake causes worries for the fishermen community in Melaghar. Many have turned to agriculture and have encroached the wetland. "Earlier, we were full-time fishermen. Now fishing is no more a profitable business, so we have turned to other activities like agriculture," says Chandan Das, a fisherman. The fishermen here also double up as boatmen to ferry tourists to the water palace. "Neer Mahal and Rudrasagar are our pride. Our families live on them. But if things are not taken up by the government, Rudrasagar will die and Neer Mahal will fall apart. Thousands of people will lose their livelihood. The palace is a marvel of architecture, it cannot be re-made," says Gautam Biswas, a social activist. For the tourists who flock to Melaghar, the shrinking lake and the decaying palace are enough to dampen their spirits. "I have come all the way from Chennai to see the water palace, but I find that the lake hardly has water. The condition of the palace is also bad. It's sad that the governments do not have proper plans to conserve rare sites," says Anantaraj. This year Tripura is celebrating the birth centenary of Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya, but his water palace is slowly losing its grandeur. Yet there is a silver lining amid dark clouds. The Centre has recently decided to spend Rs 150 million to conserve three wetlands in Northeast, one of them being Rudrasagar lake. "The Rs 50-million action plan undertaken for the all-round development of the Rudrasagar would be completed within three years," Tripura chief secretary Sashi Prakash said. ?