P J Joychen | TNN Jaipur: Despite the state government and Rajasthan High Court prohibiting any blockage or obstruction of a natural water channel in the state, the government itself is accused of violating the norms by allotting a marble slurry dumping site in the water channel of a valley near the under-construction Chitrakoot Nagar International Cricket Stadium in Udaipur. The valley on the Aravalli generates water for the downstream Roop Sagar Lake. Hydrologically, the Chitrakoot Nagar Valley is in the catchment of Berach-Banas river basin. As per the law, no embankment of more than two metre height can be constructed within this basin or in the natural channel of the valley, but the local administration allowed the Marble Association, Udaipur, to construct a series of check dams of several metre height to retain the slurry (marble dust) dumped in the valley, generated from various marble processing units of Udaipur and neighbouring places. The slurry disposal started in 2005 and was later regularised by the local administration in November 2006. The total area allotted to marble association is 18 hectares. This site is on the top of international cricket stadium and the dust of slurry blown with wind poses a threat to the international cricket stadium. After repeated complaints by Jheel Samrakshan Samiti (JSS), the additional district collector was assigned the job of preparing the factual report. The additional collector in his report on April 2008 clearly stated that the dumping site is in contravention of the directions of the orders of the court and government regulations. When the then chairman of Central Water Commission, B S Ahuja, visited the site on October 16, 2007, along with chairman of Central Groundwater Board B M Jha, they were in for a shock. The chairman of scientific committee of International Lake Environment Committee Foundation (ILEC), Japan, Masahisa Nakamura has described this situation a great ecological disaster, hydrological threat and as unscientific. He was on a visit to Udaipur on August 25 this year. Mehta alleged that the embankments to retain the slurry have been constructed without any approval and technical advise of water resources department . The report agreed with the contention of JSS and mentioned that the slurry will flow with the rainwater and deposit in downstream lake. This year