HYDERABAD: The foam-spewing Bellandur Lake of Bengaluru, it seems, has found a partner-in-crime in city’s Parka Cheruvu. The Bellandur Lake, in news recently, brought to focus the highly polluted state of urban lakes in India and now Parka Cheruvu is in news for similar reasons.
Since Wednesday night’s heavy rainfalls, the lake near Dharani Nagar’s Allwyn Colony has been discharging foam at a particular point where the overflowing water from the lake gets into a drain. This drain passes through Dharani Nagar.
The foam floats along the drain and when wind catches up, it is carried away into adjacent residential areas. Locals, meanwhile, admitted that some of them have experienced skin irritation after coming in contact with the foam. The foam is giving out a foul smell, they added.
‘Untreated municipal sewage in lake led to foaming’
Speaking on the issue, Telangana State Pollution Control Board said that it is not the industrial effluents but municipal waste being dumped into the lake that is causing the foam.
A senior TSPCB official said, “We took water samples from the site. On preliminary analysis we can say that industrial waste is not the reason as the Chemical Oxygen Demand of water is not very high, which happens in case of industrial pollution.”
“We have observed high amounts of Linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS) in the water. LAS is an indicator of detergents in water and the high presence of it means that there is a lot of untreated sewage water being let into the lake from localities located upstream. When the water from lake gushes with force into drain, due to presence of detergents, foam is formed. This has been observed recently when there was lot of foaming in the Musi river, due to high LAS levels.”
G Gopal, secretary of Dharani Nagar Residents Welfare Association, said, “We have on several occasions complained regarding the issue to all government departments but no action has been taken yet. We suspect that industries located in Jeedimetla must be dumping industrial waste illegally in the lake. We have several times asked for routing sewage through Sewage Treatment Plants but there has been no response from GHMC.”
Meanwhile, clouds of foam were seen floating on the channel through which water flows out of Ibrahim Cheruvu located opposite to Taramati Baradari.Madhulika Choudhary, an environmental activist said, “Last year too there were instances of foam occurring on the lake and we have been complaining since then to various government authorities, including Telangana State Pollution Control Board, but there has been no action.”