Four years ago on this day, four people were waiting at the sub-registrar’s office in JP Nagar to get a trust deed registered. Along with them, two others, who were to sign as witnesses. They were well prepared, having drafted the document themselves, getting it reviewed by the sub-registrar office clerks a couple of days earlier, carefully printing it, with all the papers that they had been told to bring. However, given the reputation that the sub-registrar offices have, it would be wrong to say that they were not worried about being put in an uncomfortable spot at some stage. It took but an hour or so. They were done… mugshots, signatures and all, and with nothing they couldn’t handle. PNLIT was born! From 4 we are now 400+ (likes on Facebook!) and growing.
Puttenahalli Lake, June 2010 (on the cover of Citizen Matters, July 2010)
Puttenahalli Lake, June 2014 (Pic: Nupur Jain) Don’t miss the long-surviving date palm on the island, which is PNLIT’s logo, representing resilience and perseverance.
The past four years have been very eventful, as many will have realised, through first hand experiences at the lake, participation in PNLIT’s activities and the regular emails/ blog updates we send out. There have been bouquets of joy and pools of sorrow, quite literally! Yes, the trees planted four years ago are blooming.
For those of us who have been closely involved with PNLIT, the learning has been tremendous, and as varied as it can get (ranging from technology to finance to human resource management to education to governance to just common sense!). The support received from various quarters has been critical in meeting challenges as they appeared, and working around unforeseen situations.
Sincere thanks to BBMP and other government authorities, staff, donors, volunteers, vendors and everyone else who has made the four years totally worth it!
There is much still to be done. PNLIT meets the expenses for the upkeep of Puttenahalli Lake and for its other activities, mainly through donations received from the public. PNLIT is recognised as a charity and donations are exempt u/s 80G of the IT Act. With almost no administrative expenses, you can be sure that your money is well spent. If you would like to support a charity, do consider PNLIT. For details on how you can donate and help please click here.
We look forward to your continued support in transforming Puttenahalli Lake from the dump that it was, into a secure ecosystem and a place of serenity for all of us. More info on PNLIT and Puttenahalli Lake on our website www.puttenahallilake.in.
Arathi is a market researcher who loves to run and write. She has been actively involved in issues that affect citizens, including apartment management, waste management and lakes. She used to live in Mumbai and is now based in Bengaluru, working as a Community Anchor with Citizen Matters.
71% of waterbirds at Begur Lake are declining. A visit to one of Bengaluru’s rapidly deteriorating lakes shows what's causing the collapse.
During the Open City biodiversity datajam held in December 2025, our group examined the ecological trends around Bengaluru’s lakes. Our analysis suggests a majority of waterbirds are declining across the city's lakes. Earlier, we addressed crucial questions on how migrant and resident waterbirds are surviving across 14 of Bengaluru’s lakes, how the shape of the lakes influence microhabitats, and how a scoring system can be used to record the decline in lake quality and bird populations. The last of our four-part series turns its attention to an individual site. As part of this study of waterbirds in 14 city lakes,…
From disappearing reedbeds to altered shores, here is why some of the city's lakes are thriving while others face ecological collapse.
While bird detection trends over the years clearly point to the decline of Bengaluru’s shoreline and vegetated-edge habitats, numbers alone tell only part of the story. In Part 3 of this four-part series on the state of the city's waterbirds, we have used a scoring system to understand how stressed the lakes and the microhabitats within the lake are, based on the bird diversity they support. We explore how lake shape, permanent inundation and shifts in citizen-led management might explain why some lakes may thrive as wetlands while others collapse. For instance, at Kasavanahalli, the Pied Kingfisher and the Coot…
