NGO booked for ‘damaging work’ that depleted groundwater level

BENGALURU: Malligavad Foundation (MF), an environmental NGO founded by lake conservationist Anand Malligavad, who is known to restore lakes in and around Bengaluru, has been slapped with an FIR lodged against it by the chief officer (CO) of Chandrapur town municipal council for allegedly damaging Heelalige Lake, near Bommasandra, southeast Bengaluru.

The foundation has been accused of causing “injury to works of irrigation or wrongfully diverting water” under Section 430 of Karnataka Lake Conservation and Development Authority Act, 2014. The foundation has been charged with trespass under Section 447 of the Act.

Srinivas, CO of the municipal council, said he lodged the FIR acting on a letter he had received from the minor irrigation department that said the foundation’s restoration work at Heelalige Lake had caused the depletion of groundwater levels in the area. More importantly, the work was undertaken without permission from the Karnataka Tank Conservation and Development Authority (KTCDA).


Denying the allegations, Malligavad said he has all the necessary documents to show he hasn’t carried out any work illegally. He shared with TOI a document dated March 2, 2023, addressed to Karnataka Lake Conservation and Development Authority under the letterhead of the same council that filed the FIR against him, requesting that his foundation’s detailed project report be approved for “developing the lake in the interest of the public”.

He claimed that a nexus of politicians, builders and local businessmen was trying to discredit his life’s work for capitalist gains.

As per other documents that have been accessed by TOI, the office of the deputy commissioner of Bengaluru Urban had even responded on the same day giving permission to the DPR submitted by the foundation to carry on work at Heelalige Lake under a CSR project.

While some of the villagers said their borewells had dried up this summer following work done on the lake, Malligavad said lakes were drying up all over the city and the water scarcity wasn’t categorically caused by his foundation’s work.

“For the past eight years, I’ve been restoring lakes and the goal is to stop sewage from entering them. There are many industries and homes around Heelalige Lake that were releasing effluents and sewage into the waterbody for the past 20 years. When all of my other work is doing fine, why would this be a disaster?” he asked.

He added that he had submitted the DPR to KTCDA last March. “After that, the state elections happened and the KTCDA committee was disbanded. It hasn’t recommenced operations since. As per my discussions with officials, my team dewatered the lake and de-silted and de-sludged it before the monsoon of 2023. Since there has been no KTCDA committee since the new govt was formed, we halted the work. An important part of our work is to create a diversion for sewage and we did the same for Heelalige by creating a bund with the mud we excavated during de-silting,” Malligavad explained.