The City of thousand lakes that Bengaluru once was, presently has 834 lakes and all of them have been surveyed now. Most of these lakes exist only on paper as they were consumed by urbanisation.
The Bengaluru Urban district authorities have measured all the lakes and have been uploading the information on the website http://landrecords.karnataka.gov.in/revenuemaps/lakesurvey.aspx for anybody to access. So far, survey sketches of 577 lakes and maps of 36 lakes, which are superimposed on the Google Earth satellite image, have been uploaded onto the website. The scanning and superimposition on satellite images of the remaining lakes are under way.
The details are set to open a Pandora’s box as buildings have come up on a majority of the lakes. An example is the Akkithimmanahalli lake in Survey Number 80 of Akkithimmanahalli village, Kasaba hobli in Bengaluru North taluk. The survey sketch shows that it has been completely encroached upon.
Revenue documents show that the lake is spread over nine acres and 29 guntas. Seven acres and 27 guntas have been encroached upon by private individuals, while the remaining area has been grabbed by government agencies.
The Revenue authorities have left out the lakes inside the City such as Kempambudhi, Sankey, Yediyur, Sarakki, Chikka Kallasandra, Dorekere, Gowdanapalya, Yelachenahalli, Subramanyapura, Uttarahalli, Arehalli, Ittamadu, Halage Vaderahalli, Bheemanakatte, Hosakerehalli, Chinnappanahalli and Madivala, where encroachment and tampering with records are maximum.
A senior government officer engaged in the work said the lakes inside the City have also been surveyed and maps created, but they have not been put in the public domain so far, as it would create a furore.
He said, “We have done our work. Now, the will power to clear the lakes of encroachment will be tested.”
Following news reports about dying lakes and subsequent anti-encroachment drive by the district authorities, the government woke up and formed a House panel on lake encroachment in Bengaluru, headed by Ranebennur MLA K B Koliwad. Former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and former minister S Suresh Kumar are in the panel. The panel had ordered the district authorities to survey all the lakes based on revenue records.
The humongous survey work started in the first week of July. As many as 440 surveyors were engaged in the work.
Published 22 September 2015, 21:18 IST