When patience limit was breached

With civic bodies doing nothing, volunteers' group gets serious on saving lakes

A group of volunteers under the banner ‘Save Bangalore Lakes’ has taken upon itself the task of reviving the City’s lakes, a task that should ideally have been undertaken by the local bodies.

The organisation came into existence following a meeting of lake enthusiasts and experts on August 5 last year. Comprising eight core members, the group is involved in identifying lakes, taking note of their present status, speaking to BBMP authorities or Lake Development Authority (LDA) officials (in case of encroachments), undertaking cleanliness and awareness campaigns among other tasks. 

The members have a strong network of more than 200 lake enthusiasts from various localities. The latter keep the members updated about lakes in their areas. So far, the group and lake enthusiasts have managed to collect data on 35 lakes in the City. A few of the volunteers have submitted petitions to officials, highlighting encroachment and other problems faced by prominent lakes such as Sarakki and Bellandur. 

Ted K Dass, one of the key volunteers, said, “Among the lakes which we visited and collected information about, we found most of them facing problems such as debris, encroachments and lack of fencing.

The fencing around Madivala Lake and Horamavu Agara Lake, for instance, is breached. No local body has done a complete survey or has an actual account of the number of lakes in the City. The LDA and BBMP claim to have mapped 190 lakes so far. But I fear these figures are not accurate as they keep fluctuating.” 

Balasubramanian P, another core member, pointed out that the group needs technical assistance to get data on lakes in a scientific manner.  

He said: “We definitely need help to get information on the lakes such as depth, topographical data and exact dimensions. We had earlier the approached Indian Institute of Science (IISc), but things did not work out well as our group is still in a nascent stage."

‘Save Bangalore Lakes’ is currently in the process of registering itself as the ‘ Save Bangalore Lake Trust’. Co-founder of the group, Arbind Gupta, said that by August 24, they will get it registered and very soon hold a workshop.

The group is active on GoogleGroups as [e-mail] and holds a meeting once a week.