Sewage from newly added areas polluting lakes, BWSSB tells HC

The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) on Friday submitted in the High Court that the City lakes have been polluted due to the sewerage discharged from the 110 villages, which were newly added to BBMP in 2007.

 “The lakes in the City are polluted due to sewerage flowing from unseweraged pockets of 110 villages, which were included in BBMP. The government has allocated ten TMC of water to be supplied to these 110 villages, for which the approval will be accorded shortly. After the approval, action will be initiated to take up work of providing underground drainage and once the UGDs are provided, the entry of sewerage will be prevented into the lakes,” said an affidavit filed by the BWSSB.

The affidavit was submitted in a PIL filed by Citizen Action Group seeking directions to prevent disposal of waste into stormwater drains connecting the lakes in the City. The Board said that till January 22, 2015, the BWSSB had issued 1,256 notices against letting waste water into SWDs.

Pointing out that older sewerage network of 400 mm dia pipes requires to be replaced  since they had been laid 30 or 40 years ago, the BWSSB said that 33 km of pipeline would be replaced under Environment Action Plan (EAP) A and around 70 km of pipeline would be considered for rehabilitation or replacement under EAP-B.

The BWSSB has also said that the Yediyur lake in Jayanagar and Allalsandra lake in Yelahanka New Town were now free from pollution.

According to the affidavit, after the completion of the work on upstream side to prevent flow of sewage into Yediyur lake, the lake was now free from pollution and similar steps taken in Allalasandra had also yielded similar results.