Whitefield residents to meet CM Siddaramaiah over ‘illegal’ dumping near lake

BBMP Executive Engineer Jayashankar Reddy said there is no stormwater drain in the area where the mud was being dumped, and it was not in the lake’s buffer zone. ​

BENGALURU:Whitefield residents are planning to submit a memorandum to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other officials on Saturday regarding the alleged illegal dumping of construction debris on the lake’s buffer zone.

Residents further allege that the debris is being dumped in a storm water drain. However, a BBMP official dismissed the claims and said mud is being dumped on the BBMP’s directions for construction of a road that would connect Varthur Kodi and Whitefield.  The residents’ demands are to stop the dumping of debris immediately, to clean up and remove the illegal debris already dumped there, and to restore the stormwater drain and the lake’s buffer zone. Residents have also claimed that the road itself violates the NGT’s orders as it passes through the lake bed.

Sandeep Anirudhan, a member of the RWA Whitefield Rising, said the dumping has been ongoing for the past two weeks and on Thursday, about a 100 trucks deposited mud. He said the activity, and the construction of the road, violates the NGT’s norms. “They are almost completely filling up the storm water drain. So, on Saturday, we will submit a memorandum which has been signed by over 1,000 citizens,” he said. .

BBMP Executive Engineer Jayashankar Reddy said there is no stormwater drain in the area where the mud was being dumped, and it was not in the lake’s buffer zone. He added that the road to be constructed was planned to solve traffic issues in the area, but the BBMP was yet to acquire Transferable Development Rights (TDR) for the land.

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