BBMP seeks Rs 119 cr for reviving lakes

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has written to the State government to abide by a July 2011 High Court order to release 50 per cent of the funds set aside for the rejuvenation of lakes in the City.

Pegging the estimated funds at Rs 238 crore, the Palike has sought Rs 119 crore for the purpose.
Palike Commissioner M K Shankarlinge Gowda, responding to a statement on the dying lakes by JD(S) leader Padmanabaha Reddy during the Council session on Thursday, said the BBMP had tried putting together an action plan for the project, including a quarterly report to the Council on the encroachment removal drive.

Citing the escalating water crisis in the City, Reddy said the BBMP had failed to provide a clear picture of the exact extent of the lakes surveyed.

“As per the response given to me by the officials to my starred question, the BBMP has 5,392 acres of lakebed area under its control. The Palike has surveyed 125 lakes. Of these, 111 lakes were found to have been encroached upon, resulting in the loss of tankbed area to the tune of 358.5 acres. And it has been said 131 acres and 5.91 guntas of the encroached land have been recovered. But there appears to be little clarity on what has happened to the encroachment removal drive for the rest of the land,” he said.

The JD(S) corporator from Kacharakanahalli said the response from the Forests and Lake department showed that even the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) had encroached on 15.24 acres of one particular lake in Banaswadi to build sites and distribute it to citizens.
He claimed that many lakes in the City had been encroached upon in the earlier days and structures such as the Kanteerava Stadium, Akki Thimmanahlli Hockey Stadium and other landmarks, had come up on them.

Reddy went on to list out the lakes encroached on by private and public enterprises in the City.
He quoted the examples in the A T Ramaswamy Joint Legislative Committee report in 2007, the

Lakshman Rau
report in 1985 and the recent V S Balasubramaniam Committee report of 2010 that have all been accepted by the State government, and yet no action on the encroachers was forthcoming.

Responding to the allegations and the concerns raised in the Council, Commissioner Gowda said the BBMP would henceforth provide a clear picture of their lakebed recovery drive every quarter.

“We will provide the Council with  status update on the anti-encroachment drive every three months. This will help in giving the Council and the people a clear picture and status of the lakes under the BBMP’s purview,” Gowda said.

He said the BBMP administration would propose ‘in situ’ treatment plants that will continously pump treated water into the lakes and ensure they do not dry up.

“In fact, the model of in situ treatment plant has worked wonders in London, with the Thames water becoming safe for drinking. The model helps in purifying water after tertiary treatment,” he said.

On being questioned why the State and the BBMP had not been receiving any funds from international agencies like the World Bank to protect and rejuvenate lakes in the City along the lines of Hyderabad and Bhopal, Gowda said political issues blocked funds.

“The World Bank had made it clear that due to the unhappiness expressed by one neighbouring state, it decided to release funds to protect lakes in only non-Cauvery catchment areas in the country,” he said.

The Palike will allocate exclusive funding for the rejuvenation of lakes in the upcoming budget of 2012-13, he added.

Lake areas leased out to Nice
During discussions in the Council, JD(S) corporator Muniswamyappa revealed that two portions of the Hemmigepura Lake were leased out to the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (Nice) in the City.

According to the corporator, the title deed for the tankbed area shows the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board had leased out two survey numbers of the lake to NICE for a concessional period.