THEN

NOW

The dry Pichola bed in 2009 (above) and the lake after rains this month. Pictures by Tuktak Bhanawat

Jaipur, Aug. 30: Boats are once again ferrying passengers across the Pichola, instead of jeeps, and tourists are returning to Udaipur after a two-year drought.

A good monsoon has filled up Udaipur’s lakes, a big draw for tourists, which had dried up after consecutive years of scant rainfall.

The number of tourists, which used to average around 6 lakh a year till 2007, had fallen by 30 per cent last year.

“This year, the number of domestic tourists has increased in July and August after good rainfall. With news of the lakes filled up again, the tourist season starting from September is already getting good bookings, especially from foreigners,” said Inder Sharma of the travel agency Monsoon India Tours.

Bengalis rank high among the domestic tourists, with a visit to Haldighati — the site of the battle between Akbar and Maharana Pratap — a must for many, Sharma said.

The Udaipur division gets an average rainfall of 682mm every monsoon.

Till August 15 this year, it had received 494.14mm, 36 per cent more than the normal 363.30mm. Between August 1 and 15, Udaipur city received 179.36mm of rainfall, 92 per cent more than the normal 93.60mm.

By Sunday, the water level in both Fatehsagar and Pichola — Udaipur’s two big lakes — had reached 6.2 feet. The Lake Palace hotel located in the middle of Pichola, which featured in the James Bond movie Octopussy, in the past couple of years had to forgo its fleet of boats and use jeeps to ferry guests across the dry lake bed.

It is using the boats again.

The tourism industry, on which 40 per cent of the 2.5 million population survives, is counting on a windfall thanks to this monsoon. “Although visits of celebrities like Madonna, Nicole Kidman and Liz Hurley have upped the tourist quotient among foreigners, many were thinking twice before coming here because of the dried up lakes. But this year, all this is going to change and we hope more celebrities will come,” Sharma said.

Udaipur, called the Lake City and the Venice of the East, has three big lakes in its upper catchment area, six within its municipal boundary and one downstream. There are around 100 small lakes, such as Roopsagar, Nela and Jogi Ka Talab.

Over the last 10 years, the water level in the lakes has been gradually falling because of less rains and degradation of the catchment area. In the last two years, when rains were both scant and erratic, the lakes dried up. Dry lakes also mean a water shortage in the city, which again impacts tourism.

Although travel agents are celebrating the rains this year, not everyone shares their unalloyed optimism.

Anil Mehta, a water expert who runs an NGO that is working to help maintain the hydrological balance of the lakes, said: “This year the intensity, duration and pattern of rainfall has been good. But the dangers remain as the catchment area of the lakes is highly disturbed. The rate of withdrawal of water in the downstream areas through tubewells is not controlled, leading to water levels receding despite good rains.”