BENGALURU: Bengaluru lakes are dying but one lake refuses to go quietly into the night.
Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake, locked at the north-eastern side of the city and after KR Puram, has loosed an infestation of insects and mosquitoes. The flying hordes make lives and travel miserable for local residents and motorists who take the Bengaluru-Tirupati highway that cuts through the lake.
Two-wheeler riders and auto drivers and passengers, who take the road, are the worst affected. A resident of KR Puram, Ravi Kumar D, says that helmet is not ample protection against the insects. “It clouds the face cover and crawls all over our body... it is difficult to concentrate on the riding and keep balance,” he says. Raja D, a resident of Avanahalli, says, “I often see two-wheeler riders attacked by insects. Many of them stop or lose control because the insects irritate the eye.”
While residents say that the insects are mostly mosquitoes and flies, an environmental expert says they could be Chironomidae that resembles a mosquito.
Dying lakes are what draws these insects, according to an ecological expert. “Insects need a conducive habitat to breed,” says Priyadarsanan Dharma Rajan Senior Fellow and Program Leader (Ecosystem and Global Change). “In a city like Bengaluru, you rarely spot a stretch of marshy land, which is where many insects particularly those of Chironomidae family breed,” he says. But the polluted lakes provide an alternative. “The polluted or dying lakes have a large amount of vegetation or aquatic plants, which the insects need, so they are found near such lakes,” says Priyadarshan.
They can cause allergic reactions like skin rashes, rhinitis, conjunctivitis and bronchial asthma. Large numbers can harm built structures with their droppings and dead flies can form malodorous piles. Residents insist that there is a mosquito infestation too, around the lake. “After dusk, we hardly go out fearing a mosquito attack,” says Zameer, a resident of Avalahalli. There is a rising fear of the outbreak of an epidemic.
Old-timers say the lake has changed over the years. “Two decades back, we used to get plenty of fish from this lake... now we hardly find any,” says Narayana, a senior citizen. “People don’t even go there to fish anymore, because it stinks.” This place used to be visited by many species of birds before, he says.
When City Express visited the lake, there was no missing the stench. Weeds and aquatic plants were creeping into what is left of the rapidly shrinking lake. Around the lake, we found garbage including waste from slaughterhouses. But there was a man cutting grass to be taken into the city, to feed the cows.
The BBMP officials say that they haven’t received any complaint about the flies so far. According to Sarfaraz Khan, Joint Commissioner (Health), most of them could be attracted by the lights on vehicles. “That’s why they come to the road,” he says. “We can’t use any pesticides on them because that would upset the ecological balance of the lake. A large amount of birds and fishes depend on this lake, so we need to think of other solutions.” Ecological expert Priyadarsanan too says that any control on this fly population could affect the ecological balance. They play a vital role by helping in pollination and thus increasing the vegetation.
If pollution is what attracts the flies, the easy answer would be to stop the pollutants. But Khan says that the BBMP will consider building a compound wall “to protect the lake... if it is necessary”. He adds, “I ride a two-wheeler through that stretch to understand how bad it is.”
He urges the residents to ensure that there is no contamination of the lake. “We are doing our level best to control the mosquito population by fogging and regular inspections,” he says.