Karnataka government notifies act to change buffer zone of lakes based on area

Bengaluru: The state government, on Wednesday, notified the controversial ‘The Karnataka Tank Conservation And Development Authority (Amendment) Act, 2025’ which sets the buffer zone of the water bodies based on their size.

Though the amendment was passed by the Legislature in August, 2025, the governor had sent back the bill seeking clarity on the ‘adverse effect’ of the bill. Following this, the Minor Irrigation Minister N S Boseraju had said that the bill would not harm any lakes and a revised version would be submitted. He had argued that the standard 30 meters buffer zone for all lakes had left large areas around smaller lakes useless.

It is learnt that the Governor gave consent to the bill on Monday.

Earlier, all the lakes in the city had a standard buffer zone of 30 meters. Now, with the act notified, the buffer zone of only lakes bigger than 100 acres will remain 30 meters. While the lakes up to 0.5 gunta will have no bigger zone, those measuring up to one acre will have only three meters of buffer zone .The buffer zone will be six metres for lakes sized 1-10 acres, 12 metres for lakes sized 10-25 acres, and 24 metres for lakes sized 25-100 acres.

The amendment is expected to help the government construct roads, bridges, water supply lines, sewage treatment plants, and other infrastructure. The act now notes that the permission to these activities can be awarded ‘after ensuring that the original capacity of the tanks is not reduced or cause any obstruction at the natural or normal course of inflow or outflow of water into, or from, the tanks on the upstream and or downstream even after such works’.

The amendment was opposed by citizen groups, environmentalists and experts citing that reduction of buffer zones will harm the lakes and create ecological imbalance.