After Agara, residents complain about sewage entering other lakes

Limits to lie 🤥.

@HardeepSPuri @MoHUA_India

Video courtesy: Santhosh KC

By Qamar ZJ

After Agara Lake, residents are now complaining about sewage entering lakes in Muthanallur and Chandapura. The Central Pollution Control Board has asked the state unit to submit an ATR (action taken report) after looking at this video complaint on Twitter. After exposing the encroachment mess in Anekal where a private road had encroached a pond and a stormwater drain, Capt. KC Santhosh has written about this mess in social media. 

“Will anyone answer to this utter disregard towards the environment,” he asked the authorities online. “Why don’t our government suspend those officials who are responsible for this grave condition?” 

The residents are mocking at the city getting the number one position in the Ease of Living index for 2020 released by the Government of India. In the promotional material, lakes and the bus priority lane (BPL) find a special mention. The truth is that the residents find BPL to be impractical, while several lakes have either vanished, encroached, or filled with sewage. “There is a limit to lies,” says Santhosh. While the Central Pollution Control Board has taken note of the complaint and asked its state counterpart to initiate action, there has been no ATR so far. 

This is not just about the three lakes mentioned above. Says resident Nachammai Nachiappan: “The biggest concern is not actually the sewage… it’s the toxic industrial discharge coming from Jigani Bommasandra industrial area designated as critically polluted as per CEPI. There are around 150 red category industries without ETP… they discharge all chemicals to the rajakaluve (major stormwater drain).”

Agreed the residents behind the ‘Save Yarandahalli’ campaign who tweeted: “Yarandahalli Lake once had water only during rains… now it’s always brimming. All credit to the industries of Jigani Bommasandra Industrial Area.”

The farmers are just as badly affected. Says Murali Reddy: “Innumerable complaints have gone unanswered. Official lethargy at its peak. Our two-acre farm land next to the Yarandahalli lake is completely inundated by sewage water, and is barren due to the toxins.”

BWSSB’s dismal record of running and maintaining sewage treatment plants is adding to the mess. Says C Krishnagopal: “The city generates roughly around 3000 MLD of sewage in a day, and the capacity to treat is hardly one third. If that’s the case, how much sewage is collected by the sewers and how much is reaching the treatment plants is another big black hole. Our cities are all drowning.”

These are not the only polluted lakes in the city. According to a 2016 study, 90% of the city’s lakes were either polluted or encroached. In such a situation, when the city is ranked, among other things, for its lakes, one can only laugh at the irony of it.