Lowering of Thorthomi Lake in Lunana by five metres in 2011 failed to meet its deadline. The project is delayed by a year. So far the lake is lowered by 3.86 metres. However, the deadline is now postponed to the end of this year.
The lowering of Thorthomi lake project began in 2008. The four-year project is being carried out by the Department of Geology and Mines. The mission of the project is to reduce the lake by 5 metres or by 17 million cubic metres of water. However, in the last three working seasons, the lake has been reduced by 3.86 metres short of 1.32 metres of the target.
According to the Project Manager, Dowchu Dukpa, the first year of the project was spent on revisiting the earlier technical mitigation plan. Therefore, he said, they could not carry out the mitigation works. “During 2009 the cyclone Aila delayed our work by a month. Manpower shortage was another problem we faced, so many problems in getting labour as the work needs a lot o f hardship and not many are willing to work at the site.”
He said the challenges are plenty due to manpower shortage and the unavoidable weather conditions. However, with the extension of deadline, the department is optimistic to meet the target.
“Now that we have got approval to extend the dateline we are positive of meeting the deadline. We have now only 1.32 metre left so we can do it. But we have to keep in mind the difficulty getting labourers and the harsh weather conditions as we all know we got no control over the weather,” said the Project Manager.
The mitigation works are usually carried out in June till the mid of October. This is because of the unfavorable weather condition in other months. The project is being supported by the United Nations Development Programme and will now end in July 2013.
