Survey begins to determine encroachment of B'luru lakes

The survey work on ascertaining the encroachments on around 1,600 lakes in 2,038 villages in Bengaluru Urban and Rural began on May 29, with 300 surveyors being put on the job of verifying the extent and boundaries of the water bodies.

The Survey Settlements and Land Records (SSLR) wing of the Revenue department has begun the survey work and is scheduled to complete the entire exercise by August 31. As it has assigned as many as 300 surveyors just on this task, a majority of the department’s day-to-day affairs will be affected for the next three months. Only emergency works will be tended to.

The survey work has been initiated following the directive of the House Committee on lake protection headed by Ranebennur MLA K B Koliwad. The committee, which is yet to furnish its report, had sought 200 surveyors from the Revenue department to physically verify the boundaries of all the lakes in the two districts. The Revenue department, however, was found dithering in deploying the surveyors. After much deliberation, SSLR said that it would take up the exercise and submit a report by end of August.

‘Mission’ mode

Munish Moudgil, Commiss-ioner, SSLR, said the survey work would go on a “mission” mode.

During the measurement, the actual boundaries of the lakes will be identified as per survey records of 1965, with encroachments being detected and listed.

Owing to the ongoing gram panchayat elections, only 88 surveyors have been deployed to survey 40 tanks in both the districts (20 each), in the first stage.

Both districts have four taluks each, and five tanks in each taluk are being surveyed, and the work is expected to be completed in a week’s time.

Shortly, all 222 surveyors will be on the job.
The survey work will be taken up in the presence of officials from respective agencies like BBMP, BDA, LDA, Minor Irrigation, and PWD, under whose jurisdiction the lakes come.

Georeferencing

The Survey Settlements and Land Records (SSLR) will give a bird’s eye view of the entire lake by georeferencing the land area and the encroached area, through digitised maps.
The SSLR has already digitised the survey records of 1965. By superimposing this map, with satellite imagery, it has already ascertained the extent of encroachments in two lakes - Banaswadi and Challekere.

As per the georeferencing, the extent of encroachment on the 42 acre Banaswadi lake in the year 2000 was 9.29 acres. By 2014, the extent of encroachment was 23.14 acres.
In 2000, the extent of encroachment on the 38 acre Challakere lake was 4.20 acres. By 2014, it has increased to 8.30 acres. The images are yet to be uploaded on the SSLR website.