As Chandigarh grows, its famous Sukhna Lake shrinks (With Images)

Chandigarh’s famous landmark, the Sukhna Lake, is shrinking and has been reduced to half its original size even as the ‘City Beautiful’ continues to expand.

The man-made lake, which is popular among tourists, boating enthusiasts and daily morning and evening walkers, has a capacity of only about 513 hectare metres against the original capacity of over 1,074 hectare metres in the late 1950s when it was built. Much of the capacity of the Sukhna Lake has been lost to hundreds of tonnes of silt that has accumulated in the lake over the last five decades.

While the lake is shrinking, the 114-square-km city continues to expand. Originally planned by its founder architect Le Corbusier for a population of 500,000 residents, the city has now over 1.1 million residents and a floating population of over 100,000 people a day.More