BENGALURU: Will this attempt to treat the Bellandur lake succeed? Express asked a few experts for their views.A N Yellappa Reddy, Environmentalist and a member of the expert committee constituted for the Bellandur lake, said, “We do not know what microbes are being used by the expert who is attempting this. Unless those details are available, we can not know about the outcome.”
Reddy also points out the Scalene Energy Research Institute led by Raja Vijayakumar has conducted extensive research on the Bellandur lake for three months by taking samples. “They have found out that the water is clean. It is only a problem of imbalance within the microbes in the sewage,” he said.
Elaborating on it, he said that the microbe ‘Bacillus’ has somehow got reduced while that of Nocordia has multiplied many times somehow, causing the frothing. “If the count of Bacillus is multiplied by using mass culture, then the balance would get restored. The frothing can be stopped totally by this procedure,” he added.
Asked why the Institute was not given the green signal to carry it out, he said that BDA was not willing to fund the `28 lakh required to create the culture. “I am also the Chairman of the Bangalore Environment Trust and expressed my willingness to fund it but have not been given clearance,” he added.
Almitra H Patel, national expert in waste and waste water management, says that bioremediation is the most effective, affordable and proven method to clean up water bodies. She adds that if the right bioculture and the right person with sufficient experience in carrying out bioremediation are deployed, then sewage filled lakes can be treated.
“The political and administrative will to solve the problem is vital,” she adds. However, she cautions that as long as the entry of waste into the lake is not stopped, then the treatment needs to be continuous.