Fighting civic apathy, citizens soil their hands to revive lake

BENGALURU: Caught between

Bangalore Development Authority

(BDA) and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP),

Kaggadasapura

Lake in CV Raman Nagar paints a sorry picture, prompting residents from the neighbourhood to do their bit to save it.

The lake, which was bountiful and spanned over 52 acres 15 years ago, has now shrunk to 37 acres due to indiscriminate dumping of garbage and encroachments. The waterbody froths occasionally, when untreated sewage enters it. A detailed project report (DPR) was prepared in 2012 to rejuvenate the lake but was never approved.

Fed

up with the civic apathy, residents have taken matters into their own hands. For the past six months, they have been striving to revive the lake’s glory — they gather every weekend to clean the lakebed and have even bought a raft to clear the water of the trash.

Anand Vasudevan

, a resident of New Thippasandra and member of Save Kaggadasapura Lake, an association comprising residents of surrounding areas, said the lake is in a pathetic condition they are trying to improve the situation.
“The lake has to be desilted first and the silt should be used to make the bund, which should not be more than 10 feet wide, as per the DPR,” he explained. However, a 30-foot-wide walkway started coming up at the lake in 2015. “We got the work halted. The walkway is so wide that it can easily be converted into a road. Even the flow of sewage needs to be contained before infrastructure like this is built,” Anand said, adding, “I have filed many

RTI

queries but none of them reports any ownership of the work.”

Almost 30-40 people participate in the clean-up drives every Sunday and pool in money to hire a JCB. They collect plastics, remove weeds and dry waste from the lakebed, braving the fear of snakes and insects. Senior citizens also take part in the activities.

“This lake had been orphaned and we couldn’t watch it being ruined. Till the matter is settled between BBMP and BDA, we decided to work on our own for authorities to take notice. We have been organizing painting competitions and other activities to generate awareness, and are planning to approach the National Green Tribunal (NGT),” Rasmita Jena, a lawyer and resident of Kaggadasapura, said.

Nobody’s baby

Kaggadasapura Lake is one of three waterbodies in the area but the other two — upper and lower Byrasandra lakes located inside Bagmane tech park — are not accessible to the public.

One reason for the lake’s poor upkeep is that it has no custodian. According to a senior official in BBMP’s lakes department, the order to transfer ownership from BDA to BBMP came in 2016 but the official handover is still pending.

“BDA had done some work earlier. On our part, we have no funds to develop the lake and can’t do anything till budget is allocated. Around Rs 6-8 crore would be required for the purpose. We have informed the commissioner. A huge amount of sewage is entering the lake, which needs to be stopped. There are two other lakes in the area that need attention,” he said.