QUEEN'S ROAD: Environmentalists are outraged over the state government’s move to regularise 23 illegal layouts developed by Bangalore Development Authority.
The move violates Supreme Court directions and encourages land grab, they told City Express.
Earlier this month, a committee set up by the Bangalore Development Authority listed 23 layouts built on lake beds, and recommended their regularisation.
Bengaluru Development Minister K J George on Thursday confirmed the layouts had come up on lake land.
The BDA had bypassed many regulatory norms while forming the layouts. It had not taken clearances from the Land Revenue Department and the Deputy Commissioner to convert dead water bodies for housing use.
Yellappa Reddy, well-known environmentalist, said, “The Supreme Court has clearly said constructions carried out on water bodies should be demolished. I don’t know what the government will say if someone files a contempt of court petition.”
Hearing cases between Animal and Environment Legal Defence Fund and Union of India (1997) and Susetha vs Tamil Nadu (2006), the Supreme Court had said lakes should be conserved jointly by the government and citizens.
The Wetland Rules of 2010, notified by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, restrict solid waste dumping and discharge of untreated effluents into lakes.
However, the city has been long hostile to its lakes.
Swaminathan, a Bengaluru-based environmentalist, says a proper survey was last done by the Lakshman Rao Committee in 1988. It found 262 lakes in the ‘Bangalore Metropolitan Area,’ of which 46 were considered dead.
Today, only 80 lakes survive. Of them, 40 are either dying or dead. Shockingly, neither the BBMP nor the BDA has an updated map to show how many lakes are alive.
“The Karnataka High Court in 2014 asked the Revenue Department to remove encroachments from lake beds, after which a massive demolition drive was undertaken. However, it was stalled mid-way when some property-owners protested,” Yellappa Reddy said.
Lakes in Sarakki, Puttenahalli, Banaswadi and Kacharakanahalli are already extinct, or are on the verge of extinction, thanks to encroachments.