BENGALURU: A plan is in place to revive lakes in the city. Bengaluru Urban DC has proposed a co-ordination committee with concerned stakeholders for cleaning of water bodies. The panel will have representatives from different organisations like BBMP, BDA, KSPCB, Mines and Geology and Minor Irrigation.
"During my stay at Anekal recently, villagers complained about polluted lakes in Jigani, Bommasandra and other areas. I met representatives of different departments and they agreed to do their bit for clean lakes," Bengaluru Urban DC B M Vijay Shankar said on Tuesday."We will soon come up with an action plan and seek meetings with ministers,'' he said.
"There are many polluted lakes in the city. Cleanliness drives will be conducted phase-wise. Initially, we will target only 10-12 lakes. Encroachment removal will be carried simultaneously. We will also seek help from corporate sector,'' Shankar said.
In BBMP limits, there are 633 SWDs, which run a length of 842 kilometres. The drains are built to deal with 80 mm of rainfall, but over the years, encroachment and poor maintenance have narrowed down the capacity to just 35-40 mm of rainfall.
As a result, any rainfall above this figure will result in flooding. In July 2016, BBMP officials had given a list of 1,953 SWD encroachments to the then Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Of these, they had cleared 1,255 encroachments by 2017. However, since last year, the encroachment removal drive was not taken up as there were no surveyors.