InfoChange News & Features

This series by Thingnam Anjulika Samom deals with the impact of modernisation, development and state policy on the traditional use, control and management of Loktak lake, the largest common property aquatic resource in Manipur. The Loktak Hydropower Project commissioned in 1983 has damaged the ecology of the largest freshwater lake in the northeast, and has altered the culture, agricultural and livelihood patterns of communities residing around Loktak. The series looks at what this common property resource used to be and what it has become.

Loktak, the 300-square-km lake is spread over three districts in the valley – Imphal West, Bisnupur and Thoubal and covers 61% of the total identified wetlands of Manipur. Besides being the source of livelihood for hundreds of people, Loktak also houses the floating national park Keibul Lamjao, the only home in the world to the endangered Sangai deer. It is not only the geographical topography of the lake that has changed in the last few decades. The lake is also beset by increasing pollution, siltation, rapid proliferation of phumdis and the commissioning of the Loktak hydel project in the 1980s Manipur or Imphal River, with the Loktak lake forming the headwaters to provide regulated storage for power generation.