BENGALURU:As nine lakes overflowed due to incessant rain over the last two days, which led to flooding of houses, it is pertinent to note that last year in a report submitted to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, it was found that 10,785 acres - or around 18 per cent - of lake area had been encroached in 1,547 lakes in Bengaluru Urban and Rural districts.
Of the total 1,547 lakes, 837 lakes were in Bengaluru Urban district while 710 were in the Rural district, collectively spread across 57,932 acres.The report further added that out of that, 10,785 acres had been encroached upon by both government and private agencies.
Environmentalist Yellappa Reddy said: “There should be pre- and post-monsoon maintenance, if it is clogged with plastic then it will overflow.” He said engineers should be able to predict how much rainfall will cause what sort of water flow.In the BBMP Council meeting held in June 28, `25 crore was sanctioned for repair and strengthening of embankments.
But, though the Palike had predicted that certain lakes were going to be breached, they couldn’t be stopped from overflowing. Gubbala Lake embankment was completely made of mud, Vasanthapura had cracks developed in its embankment while Doddakalasandra had no embankment at all.
Professor TV Ramachandra, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Energy and Wetlands Research Group, Indian Institute of Science (IISC), said “When there is no long term maintenance of the lake, the stability comes down, there is siltation which brings down the storage capacity and leads the lake to overflow and breach.”
He further added that 70 per cent of the water requirement can be met by rain.