gurugram gurugram metropolitan development authority gmda faces an uphill task in its project to restore the lake at sikanderpur even if it manages to revive the lake and free its watershed area from encroachments getting enough water to fill it and maintaining the water level throughout the year would be a challenging task an internal study by gmda has revealed officials close to the project said similar challenges are likely to come up while restoring other water bodies as wellthe concept paper suggests the average yearly rainfall in the project areas varies from 337mm to 781mm with the regions high evaporation rates the pond requires to maintain water at 5m depth at least for it to be perennial in an urban setting its necessary to feed water bodies with recycled water which is what were also planning to do well have to meet water quality levels prescribed by ngt which as per our understanding is attainable said m d sinha additional ceo gmdahe added gmda is anyway planning to build a network to redistribute recycled water which can also be used to feed water bodies sinha said in the last two decades gurugrams surface hydrology the natural flow of rain water has changed drastically due to building of roads and any sustainable revival of the lake would depend on restoration of these drainage channels and further augmentation of water flowsdespite the challenges the authority has drawn up a plan to restore the water body the execution of the project would include habitat restoration and securing of the watershed as of now most of the lakes watershed area barring few encroachments is owned by the government we shouldnt have major problems in that regard said sinha once the habitat is restored and water body revived it will be turned into a green public space with facilities such as nature trails walkingcycling tracks open air theatre viewing points etcpartfunded by csr the project is being developed for an approximate cost of rs 1525 crore it will take around four years to complete the area to be covered which includes the lake and its catchment has been divided into two zones one to the left of road 9 which includes the lake water course and some catchment area and the other to the roads right which mostly covers the catchment area the work will begin with zone 1 mostly under sikanderpur ghosi and encompassing 26 hectare with a perimeter of 84km it will then be extended to zone 2 on the other side of road 9 officials said they expected to face similar problems while restoring other drying water bodies in the region besides work on the actual lake site habitat restoration in the watershed would determine the projects success or failure restoration of the water bodies is chief minister manohar lal khattars pet project and with so many challenges it wouldnt be easy for gmda to execute the project