File picture of tourists taking a boatride to Neer Mahal in the middle of Rudrasagar Lake. (Inset) The palace lit up for the three-day annual held festival last week to promote tourism. Picture by Eastern Projections

Melaghar (West Tripura), Jan. 1: A hush descended on the wind-swept palace in the midst of the dying Rudrasagar lake as the son et lumi?re at Neer Mahal blinked out, thanks to a powercut.

It took the management exactly an hour to restore the power supply and resume the programme. By then, nearly half the 100-odd viewers had left their seats in disgust. ?What can we do if power supply fails? Philips had designed the light and sound programme at a cost of Rs 2.6 crore, but we can?t help it if there?s no power to run it,? said Khoka Dhar, an employee of the tourism department.

For all the Manik Sarkar government?s rhetoric about augmenting resources through tourism, Neer Mahal ? arguably the best-known tourist site in Tripura ? is dying slowly but steadily. It has even been designated a heritage site by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

Tripura?s last king Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya (1923-1947) had been inspired by the lake palace in Rajasthan?s Udaipur to build one of his own. The sprawling 8.6 sq. km Rudrasagar Lake in Melaghar area of West Tripura, 50 km southwest of Agartala, came close to the ambience of the lake palace the king had seen in Rajasthan. Martin Burn Company, the British firm which had built the Ujjayanta Palace at Agartala in 1901, constructed Neer Mahal in 1930 as the summer resort of King Bir Bikram and Maharani Kanchanprava Debi.

Neer Mahal is in its death throes because the lake is drying up, there is encroachment on the tracts of land around the lake and the administration is cynically apathetic.

?The original sprawl of the lake is now down to just three square km as people living around the lake have started cultivating paddy in areas previously covered by the lake. The lake?s water is drying up because of siltation,? said Badal Debnath, a tourism employee.

Debnath pointed out that unless the depth of water was increased by dredging the lake, the palace would collapse.

The Tripura government has struck the last nail into its coffin by allowing two major brick kilns to come up on the edge of the lake. ?These kilns are destroying not only the lake but the entire site. I am surprised how the government gave them permission,? said Debnath.

Senior officials of the tourism department said in 2002, Delhi had sanctioned Rs 40 lakh for dredging the lake but no work has been done.

The tourism department had celebrated the three-day Neer Mahal Festival from Sunday to Tuesday with much fanfare. But because the lake is drying up, many tourists found it well-nigh impossible to reach the palace in the middle of the lake by motorboat.

?The encroachments have to be cleared, the lake dredged and the brick kilns relocated. But these have to be implemented by a co-ordinated effort of a number of departments. The decisions have to be taken by the ministers,? said R.K. Chakma, joint director in the tourism department.

He, however, said an action plan was being drawn up to renovate the lake palace.

?If the government is ready to pay the political cost of alienating a few hundred voters, everything can be done. Otherwise, it will be difficult to preserve and protect Neer Mahal,? Chakma added.