Hold survey on Arakere lake, Koliwad tells officials

The House Committee on Lake Encroachment Chairman K B Koliwad on Wednesday directed the Bengaluru Urban district authorities to survey the Arakere lake within a fortnight, and demolish the compound wall of an apartment inside Hulimavu lake.

During his inspection of Arakere and Hulimavu lakes, Koliwad vented ire at the officials for allowing the construction of compound wall inside the Hulivmavu lake.

“Arakere is one of the lakes we (panel) had visited soon after the formation of the committee.

We had directed the district administration to conduct a survey of the lake. But it has not been done so far.

Who should be held responsible for it.” Koliwad questioned the officials. Assistant Commissioner of Bengaluru South  L C Nagaraj explained to Koliwad that some of the property owners obtained the stay order against the action. The court had ordered status quo, besides directing the joint survey. In the mean time the encroachers built a compound wall, he added.

Reacting to the assistant commissioner’s explanation, another panel member S Suresh Kumar wondered why no survey was carried out in the last one year even as the court had issued directions for joint survey in July 2015. He also questioned the district officials why they didn’t abide by the status quo order.

Bengaluru South Tahsildar S M Shivakumar told the panel members that many missives to the Survey Settlement department for the joint survey failed to elicit any response.
An activist, who was present during panel’s inspection, said the compound wall was constructed with the help of rowdies while the entire district administration remained mute spectator to it.
DH News Service