Private layouts, apartments come up on encroached lake lands

Large number of private layouts and apartment complexes have come up on the encroached lake lands in Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru Rural districts, as per the records of department of Survey Settlement and Land Records (SSLR).

A closer look at the new survey sketches of lakes and waterbodies prepared by the department in the two districts, revealed that several private layouts have been formed on the encroached lake lands.

For instance, residential sites have been formed on 16 gunta land (17,424 sq ft) of Mylasandra lake in Bengaluru south taluk of Bengaluru Urban district. But it is not clear whether those who have grabbed the lakes have managed to sell sites after forming layouts.

A majority of the lakes and waterbodies are encroached upon on the pretext of practising agriculture. Records show that land grabbers are growing variety of crops including jowar, maize and vegetables.

But, in reality, agriculture is only a cover up. It will be easier for them to get away from facing action if they project themselves as farmers, sources in the government said.

The SSLR has identified a total of 4,205 lakes and waterbodies in the two districts. Of this, about 1,500 survey sketches have been uploaded by the department on its website.

The survey is being done following a direction by the Karnataka Legislative Assembly committee set up to look into the encroachment on lakes in the two districts.

Biggest encroachers
 The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) appears to be one of the biggest encroachers of lakes and waterbodies as far as the government agencies are concerned. The BDA has used lake lands extensively for the development of layouts and roads.

Entire Neelasandra has been developed on 17.32 acres of lake land by the BDA.
Besides, the Isro has encroached on 8.03 acres of the then Nagashettyhalli lake, as per the records.