For residents in Bengaluru’s Bellandur, it seems that things will get much worse before it gets better. This because the infamous lake in their backyard will undergo dredging/desilting processes as suggested by the National Green Tribunal-appointed committee.
The Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA), which is the custodian of Bellandur Lake is cleaning up the lake by dumping the existing contaminated water into the Varthur Lake, which has also spewed toxic foam in the past.
Water (mostly sewage) currently flows from Bellandur to Varthur to Dakshina Pinakini river as part of the connected tank systems of Bengaluru. Pinakini continues to flow towards Tamil Nadu.
As discussed by the Justice Santosh Hegde appointed committee, the BDA has already created additional temporary channels to drain the water further downstream into Varthur Lake. BDA officials say that once the one-time clean-up of Bellandur Lake is complete, they will bypass the flow away from Varthur Lake and dump into the Dakshina Pinakini River. Once clean-up of lakes upstream is complete, clean water will flow into the river, they argue.
Once the STP is ready by June 2020, the original flow of the lakes will be restored.
An all stakeholder meeting was held on Thursday in this regard. Officials of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) have been asked to deal with the swift removal of the weeds and silt in the lake but that will bring with it problems of stench and the threat of mosquito breeding.
And as the deweeding work begins, activists are worried whether the BDA will live up to the task or only desilt the lake partly.
“As the lake sediments are exposed to sun, foul smell will emanate as will mosquitoes. BBMP will have to take steps to mitigate both, but nearby residents should brace for the worst,” Sonali Singh, a resident-activist who is closely following the developments, said.
She added, “While these problems are unavoidable, we have to ensure that this desilting process is done at least to a depth of 10 feet.”
“We will finish the dredging by July 20. With the monsoon coming, we have to be prompt as we want to fill the lake with freshwater,” by Shivananda, Superintendent Engineer, the concerned BDA official, told TNM.
TV Ramachandra, veteran scientist at the IISc who is also part of the NGT committee, said, “There are things that should be done before they can desilt. They need to have a drain to divert the sewage. Till the sewage is treated by the BWSSB completely, a temporary drain has to be constructed. For this, they have to file a TPR (Technical Project Report) and get a financial concurrent. Only after all this is done can the desilting take place.”
Background
The lake has been in the news since February 2017 after it caught fire for the second time in recent history. The second fire had prompted the NGT to take suo motu cognisance and pull up the state government and local bodies, and monitor the restoration process of the lake body. Till date, the lake froths and foams from time to time, especially during rains. All this continues because untreated sewage and industrial emissions flow into the lake unabated.
The state government had promised a fix by 2020 by installing a new sewage treatment plant.
When asked why the BWSSB was letting sewage flow into the lake all this while, officials said that they were only implementing government plans as they are an implementing agency and have no freedom to plan projects. Over the last three decades, the Bellandur and Varthur lakes have been receiving steady inflow of sewage as the BS+WSSB had not diverted the illegal sewage inflow into the lake.
“As over the years, the sewage increased, the STP capacities remained the same. The new STPs will solve the problem of untreated sewage flowing through the underground drainage system. For areas which are not unserviced by the UGD system, they are supposed to have their own STPs,” the BWSSB official added.