kolkata historic is how green lovers activists and even state environment department officials reacted to the coordinated action against wetland encroachment over the weekend the general sense was one of accomplishment and euphoria at having witnessed government agencies taking on the real estate might undoubtedly saturdays drive was the most significant in recent memory given the sheer size of the wetland that was under threat and the astronomical price it would have fetched after conversion to real estate there are however instances in the past when bureaucrats technocrats and even ministers have stood up to be counted when environment faced a threat in the 1980s and the 1990s two big wetlandssantragachi jheel in howrah and brace bridge jheel in southwest kolkatawere under threat not from the land mafia but by central government organizations that wanted to realize the monetary value locked in the prime land while the santragachi jheel owned by south eastern railway ser was lying unused next to santragachi station the kolkata port trust kopt waterbody at brace bridge was leased to mudiali cooperative fisheries for pisciculture both kopt and ser had then prepared proposals on filling up the waterbody and convert the waste land into productive asset it was dhrubajyoti ghosh a wetland expert who intervened and convinced then ser general manager anup singh and kopt chairman animesh ray to reconsider the projects for the sake of environment the persuasive method worked both singh and ray understood the importance of wetlands and agreed to conserve them in the past decade two ministers of the erstwhile left front government have personally intervened to save wetlands then fisheries minister kiranmoy nanda had stopped the dumping of waste to fill up a wetland next to captain bheri along em bypass after an sos call from an ngo though a slew of government bodies including wbidc kmda and kmc had given permission to a joint venture project on the plot nanda refused to tow the line the project was ultimately scrapped former environment minister manab mukherjee too stopped the clandestine draining of water from a wetland along em bypass the site was to be developed into a market complex mukherjee took a tough stance on the matter and not only stopped the encroachment but ensured that water was pumped into the wetland from a nearby source to have it restored within a day