Mayem lake losing its old glory

Rajendra P. Kerkar

Mayem lake nestled amidst hillocks was a tourist destination. However, onset of mining activities on a large scale has resulted in threatening the ecology and environment of the Mayem lake. Negligence from the government too have accounted for declining the old glory of the lake.

2 km away from Bicholim town the Mayem lake, a decade ago was a well known tourist spot that was attracting huge crowd of domestic and foreign tourists. But, the mining activities initiated on a large scale in Mayem have restrained the tourists inflow in the area as many times mining transportation have raised hurdles on the main road for tourists buses and vehicles.

Mayem lake is the artificially created water body that was catering irrigation needs of Mayem farmers. Agriculture was the main occupation of our village. As the soil was fertile and irrigation water was available from Mayem lake and other water bodies, farmers were cultivating a variety of paddy species, like Khochri, damgo, belo, asago. But today agriculture and horticulture is on decline.

Since pre-Portuguese period Mayem lake was a main source of irrigation water. The hard working village community through the collective efforts have excavated the lake mainly to get water for agriculture and horticulture fields and every year the community was involved in desilting and maintenance of the lake. Establishment of shrine in the honour of the guardian spirit of the lake locally known the Taleshwar, helped the community to protect the sagacity of the lake. Villagers used to have strong belief that the folk deity Taleshwar was maintaining the cleanliness of the lake. But, now a days opening of the lake for the tourism activities is responsible for destroying the traditional social fabric that was present in Mayem since the hoary past.

Since 1965 large amount of monies have been expended to develop in tourism angle. But the operation of mining leases within a kilometre has accounted the declining the water level in the lake. Mining silt has been accumulating in the lake from the mining dumps that have been kept unprotected and unstablised.

Dr. G. N. Naik of the Goa University has conducted study of impact of mining on environment in Goa (1994). This study has found that retaining walls constructed around the dumps are ineffective in holding fine silt, sized materials, and the erosion and transportation of materials from the dumps to the lake basin cannot be ruled out especially during monsoon.

Due to steep slopes of dumps and unconsolidated nature of their constituents, dump materials gets wash down the slope either filling up the low-lying agricultural land or it gets deposited within inland water basin causing siltation and transforming it to uncultivable land.

This lake is helping locals to earn their livelihood through hotels and restaurants and other business activities. If proper infrastructure and necessary facilities are provided and tourists are encouraged to visit the lake, it will help our villagers.

Today, lake is used for boat riding by the tourists. The lake also attracts the diversity of avi-fauna. Various species of kingfishers, herons, egrets, cormorants are attracted to the lake area.

Once, the lake was known for rich diversity of birds. It was a favourable natural habitat for birds. But, uncontrolled mining activities have disturbed the ecology and environment of the lake which has caused disturbances to the habitat of the birds.



This lake was known for the richness of local varieties of fishes. Villagers were relishing on these fishes but, today accumulation of the mining silt and pollutants has threatened the fish diversity of the area.