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Bengaluru lakes degrading due to neglect: VP Naidu
Earlier in the day, chief minister Basavaraj Bommai received the vice president while governor Thaawarchand Gehlot accompanied Naidu to the event.
Bengaluru Vice President Venkaiah Naidu on Monday mirrored the sentiments of concerned Bengalureans when he pointed out that the water bodies in India’s IT capital were degrading due to neglect and encroachments.
“Bangalore (Bengaluru) is blessed with so many lakes and water bodies. Slowly they are getting degenerated because of people’s carelessness and also encroachments at various levels,” Naidu said, breaking away from his speech to make the observations while addressing scientists and students at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) at Bengaluru on Monday.
Earlier in the day, chief minister Basavaraj Bommai received the vice president while governor Thaawarchand Gehlot accompanied Naidu to the event.
Naidu’s comments comes at a time when lakes continue to disappear in Bengaluru on account of rapid and unplanned growth, encroachments and poor maintenance of these water bodies by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
Bengaluru, once known as the land of a thousand lakes, now has barely 200 of them which are in pitiable conditions.
Though the BBMP and the state government earmark hundreds of crores towards rejuvenation of lakes each year, experts state that this is mostly to beautify the surroundings of the lake than the ecology which is far more important than the aesthetics of such water bodies.
Even the Vrishabhavathi river, once a source of water for Bengaluru, has now become nothing more than a flowing drain with toxic water on account of unplanned civic infrastructure which allows sewage water directly into lakes and other water bodies, contaminating soil, underground water and impacting the overall quality of life in a city which is known world over for its prowess in information technology, startups and aerospace among other sectors.
At least 19 lakes out of the remaining 205 (out of earlier estimates of at least 250) under the BBMP have been termed as disused lakes due to encroachments according to a February 2021 report by CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).
Some of these encroachments are by big builders who then name these projects “lake view” to attract more interest from potential buyers, Hindustan times had reported on March 21.
Bengaluru, experts say, is a victim of its own success as it continues to encroach upon lake beds to build apartments and other commercial spaces which has impacted the ecology, making it prone to flooding and an acute drinking water crisis which has forced successive state governments to deprive several districts of Cauvery river water, about a 100 kms away, and pump it into Bengaluru to quench its thirst.
The vice president also said that Karnataka chief minister should focus his attention on the “maintenance and rejuvenation” of water bodies in and around Bengaluru and the rest of the state.
Naidu also asked the scientific community to come up with out-of-the-box solutions to address challenges faced by mankind like climate change, promote research in emerging areas like computational biology and artificial intelligence and focus on agriculture among others.
He also said that agriculture is the “basic culture of the country” and asked the scientific community to focus their attention on issues faced by the farming community.
