Sweet water lake in Tsunami hit land: A

Port Blair, July 21: The Andaman and Nicobar administration has initiated works for starting a mega project of transforming tsunami inundated land into a sweet water lake at Sippighat village of South Andaman.

''This will be a dream project, which will solve almost all the water shortage problems of South Andaman region,'' APWD Executive Engineer B N Malhotra told the sources here today.

The proposed project would come up after sealing some portion of tsunami inundated land of South Andaman and pumping out salt water to store fresh rain water.

According to experts the lake, to be completed by 2008, would store one-fourth of the total capacity of Dhanikhari Dam, the only water resourvior of South Andaman.

''After expansion and inclusion of more and more area into the lake the capacity will be five times of Dhanikhari project. So in coming days, there wont be any water crisis in these islands,'' Mr Malhotra said.

The work started at war-footing after the inspection of the Lt Governor at Sippighat, where he had instructed Andaman PWD to start this project.

APWD had also started works for the legal acquisition of tsunami submerged lands and a total of 269 government and private plots would be taken by the administration.

The administration had also assured a suitable compensation package for the owners, whose inundated land would be acquired.

UNI