ISLAMABAD: Mismanagement and lack of coordination among authorities concerned has led to illegal business activities in Rawal Lake, including commercial boating and illegal fishing, while the fishing contractor has a dispute with the capital administration.

As commercial boating continued at Rawal Lake, neither the civic agencies nor the local administration has awarded a contract for it.

When contacted, a senior official of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) said many functions, including parks, had been transferred to the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) after the bifurcation of the civic body in 2016.

On its part, officers of the MCI maintained that the matter was being directly dealt by Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz.

“It is because boats taking visitors on rides are operating under the patronage of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration because the jurisdiction of the CDA and MCI is limited over land only, not water,” the official said, adding even the issue of illegal fishing and awarding fishing contract was the subject of the ICT administration.

“The ICT has failed to contain both illegal fishing and boating activities. They have the authority and support of the police, how can the MCI conduct an operation against boats in the middle of the lake.

Besides, the boat operators take their vessels into nearby villages that fall under the ICT and not under the CDA,” the official explained.

While MCI and CDA officials were reluctant to be named, Deputy Director Fisheries ICT Imtiaz Janjua threw the ball in the MCI court.

“All visitors to the Lake View Park board the boats from the jetty there, it is MCI’s jurisdiction. However, fishing is the responsibility of the ICT and a contract was award around two years ago that has expired.

While no agency was ready to take responsibility over boating activities in the lake, illegal fishing is on the rise as in the winter the demand for fish increased. The issue of fishing licence too was under dispute between the ICT and the contractor.

The ICT has recently stopped the activities of the contractor as his two-year contract expired.

On the other hand, the contractor accused the ICT administration of violating its own decision made before the start of the harvest season.

After almost 14 years, the contract for commercial fishing was awarded by the ICT in January 2017 for two years, which was set to expire by mid-2019. The contract can be extended for the third year after mutual consent between the contractor and the ICT.

The contractor, Sher Bahadur Afridi, said a decision was made by the deputy commissioner Islamabad in June 2018 in favour of extending the contract.

“According to the decision, Rs20.12m compensation for fish mortality be paid by the ICT department of fisheries to the contractor and the department may extend the contract by one year in lieu of compensation to be paid to the contractor.”

Mr Afridi said: “This clearly states that the contract has been extended up to mid-2020.”

Besides, he said, fishling worth Rs400,000 were implanted in March-April 2019 for harvest after October.

“The department should have stopped us at that time from instilling seedlings if we did not have any contract or the ICT should have called another tender in the summer for the harvest in winter” Mr Afridi said.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2019