Nagaon, Sept. 15: Hundreds of waterbodies in the district are on the verge of extinction because of lack of maintenance, apathy and shortsightedness of the local administration and people’s ignorance.

Official records show that 22,854 hectares of waterbodies are in peril in the district because of lack of maintenance and encroachment. Pollution and artificial waterlogging are the two main threats to these waterbodies.

Most government departments, including the District Rural Development Agency, have undertaken numerous schemes for the maintenance and development of these waterbodies but without tangible results. The major works have been undertaken by the DRDA under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which was launched in Nagaon in 2008.

Official records show the Nagaon DRDA has 82 major and minor schemes in hand for renovation of the waterbodies, half of which are already complete. The department has spent Rs 90.64 lakh and development work of another Rs 84.07 lakh is under way in the district.

Two other departments engaged in development are fishery and agriculture. The agriculture department had launched a project in 2001 under the National Watershed Development Programme for renovation of 17 waterbodies in the rainfed areas but the work remained unfinished after the first year grant-in-aid was released.

“Once these were a major source of fish. But not more than 200kg of fish per hectare per year can be expected from these waterbodies now. If these are well maintained, production could go up to 3,200kg per hectare a year,” a source in the fishery department said.

“Since 2008, we have renovated 66 hectares of water bodies and another 31 hectares have been taken up this year. New concepts of pisciculture are uplifting annual fish production that goes up from 18,954 metric tonnes in 2008 to 22,596 metric tonnes in 2009,” the source said.

“When NREGA started, we hoped that these water sources would get a new lease of life but largescale corruption and lack of a fruitful policy killed our dreams,” said Rajat Hazarika, a resident of of Batadrava.