Kolar lakes: veracity of IISc findings questioned

Legislative Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar has sought the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to clarify if it has sanctioned a study on the lakes of Kolar and the KC Valley Sewage Treatment Plant.

In a letter addressed IISc director Anurag Kumar, the Speaker, on Monday has also raised doubts over the veracity of the findings of research studies involving one of the institute’s professors.

Seeking to know if Prof T V Ramachandra (Centre for Ecological Sciences) was associated with IISc, Ramesh Kumar has charged the scientist was “pretending” to be a hydrologist.

Kumar’s letter comes in the wake of a report published by DH titled ‘IISc warns of heavy metals in Kolar lakes’ on September 30, where the findings of the IISc team led by Prof Ramachandra has been detailed. The findings revealed that there was heavy metal contents in the treated water pumped from the KC Valley STPs to two lakes in Kolar.

Kumar, who hails from Srinivaspura taluk in Kolar district has however taken exception to the same.

Stating that the government had taken up the Rs 13,000 crore Yettinahole drinking water project to supply water to the parched districts of Kolar and Chikkaballapur, in addition to another Rs 2,000 crore project, Kumar however said that such projects were being tarnished by experts like Ramachandra.

“One Ramachandra has often been presenting himself in the media and sometimes pretending to a hydrologist claiming to be actively associated with IISc. He is going around giving misleading, faulty statements with malafide intention to block these projects. I apprehend that he could be doing so on behest of vested interests, which is detrimental to the people of the two districts. Yesterday, there was a media report expressing that a team headed by Ramachandra allegedly associated with IISc has given a report in respect to K C Valley project. I am not questioning his academic credentials and his freedom to make a study on any issue and give a report. The only compulsion for which I am writing this letter is to know whether it is being done under the aegis of IISc,” his letter reads.