KARGIL, JANUARY 02, 2022: The month of December has passed away but Ladakh has not received snowfall yet to meet the water supply for irrigation and other requirements. The farmers in Ladakh are distributing alms and conducting congregations seeking grace from Almighty Allah for snowfall this winter.

Amidst all the concerns, the people of Khalamarpoo and Chumikchan village of Sankoo Sub Division has embarked on developing artificial glaciers to deal with water scarcity during the summer season. The making of the artificial glaciers is a joint effort of the community to create a glacier that is nowadays known as ice stupa in Ladakh.

The project started on 26 November 2021 in collaboration with the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL) where a gigantic vertical block of ice has been developed to date at Chumikchan.

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To create the ice stupa, pipes have been connected to a stream of water from higher in the mountains which flows down over the stupa which freezes to develop it higher.

The people are expecting to raise up the glacier to further height as both the winter months of January and February are yet to be exhausted where freezing is possible.

The community is looking at this as a success and hopeful to get benefitted from the glacier in famine years to irrigate their lands. The people are also looking forward to competing in the annual ice stupa competition 2021.

The first ice stupa in Ladakh was created in 2013 at a high mountain-desert region bordered by the Himalayas, largely dependent on glacial runoff for water. As the glaciers recede, owing to climate change, the flow of water has become more erratic. Sometimes there’s too much, producing flash flooding; often, there’s too little. The ice stupa, a kind of artificial glacier, is the brainchild of a Ladakhi engineer named Sonam Wangchuk.