Damdama Lake to get makeover before monsoon

Damdama Lake, which is a natural water reservoir in Sohna and the biggest lake in Haryana, will soon get a makeover. Around Rs 38 lakh will be spent to develop the water body.

With a view to revive the lake before monsoon, the tourism department has already started clearing the nearby areas and also cleaning the silt deposited in the lake’s bed so that rainwater can be stored.

There are plans to buy more boats for the lake and a camping site will be developed in the area. The lake, which is around 20 kms away from Rajiv Chowk on NH8, has a potential to turn into a major tourist attraction in the area as it is surrounded by the Aravalli forest.

“Rainwater is the only source of water for the lake and it had almost dried up in the summer because of poor monsoon. We will dig up the lake bed so that fresh water in the monsoon season can be accumulated in the lake,” said Vivek Bharadwaj, manager of Haryana tourism department’s Damdama, a tourist complex.

Around 7 acres of land will be cleared of silt and by the end of this month, the lake will be ready for tourists, he said.

This area around Damdama Lake is strategically important because a 2.5-km-long trail of leopard pugmarks was found by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in February while they were conducting carnivorous study in the region. The team also found hyena pugmarks and some unidentified pugmarks that could be of the Indian fox, which is rare for the region.