Vengaiah lake rejuvenation a welcome relief for K R Puram residents

Bengaluru: After years of waiting and staging protests, the residents of KR Puram finally found relief as the rejuvenation of Vengaiah lake began, amid Bengaluru's water crisis.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) Lakes Department had initiated works on dewatering with the installation of trenchless pipelines nearing completion.

The department had also started work on clearing out hyacinth spread across the lake.

The sprawling 65-acre lake had been subjected to years of encroachment and was prone to pollution with the direct inflow of sewage water. Over the years, multiple protests by activists and subsequent proposals by the Lakes Department to revive the 170-year-old waterbody did not go anywhere.

However, with the water crisis affecting the day-to-day activities of Bengalureans, the revival work had brought some hope to the residents of KR Puram.

'Dream come true'

Balaji Raghotham Bali, an activist who fought for the lake’s revival for years, said that the completion of underground drainage diversion works in Vengaiah lake was a “dream-come-true moment” for KR Puram residents.

"On the one hand, the pumping out of water would aid in desilting, and on the other, weeding of the hyacinths would improve the lake’s condition,” he said.

If the works continued to take place at the same pace, the lake would be revived in a year, he suggested, adding that this would be a relief for KR Puram residents.

He said the authority had fenced the lake premises to avoid further encroachment.

A BBMP executive engineer said the work was expected to be completed in four to five months.

"The trenchless pipeline works would be finished in the coming week, and desilting works would be started soon after. We are also clearing out the hyacinth growth. It would take at least four to five months for the lake to be completely ready,” the official told DH.

Numbers dwindle   

Lakes in Bengaluru, once numbering over a thousand, have now dwindled to just a few hundred. Many of them have dried up due to severe depletion of the groundwater table, poor maintenance, and unscientific rejuvenation techniques.

The BBMP's Lakes Department has listed 210 lakes, out of which 167 had come under the civic body.