Bangalore Lakes

A decade ago, sewage flowed where water once did, in the lakebed of Bengaluru’s Puttenahalli Lake. Today it is 13-acres of clean water, a diverse ecosystem and a peaceful area for community members. It is a shining example of a successful lake rejuvenation, a movement more complicated than it may seem. Apart from being public commons and beautiful displays of nature, lakes are essential for groundwater recharge and rainwater collection, important to Bengaluru especially in the days of water shortage. Rain water canals connect lakes to each other, thus lakes end up sinking a lot of groundwater, while excess of…

We are delighted to tell you that our low cost, low maintenance Artificial Floating Island (AFI) has been introduced at Madiwala Lake! Karnataka Lake Conservation and Development Authority (KLCDA) plans to introduce these in Agara lake as well. Last month, on 12th July, Ms. Seema Garg, the new CEO of KLCDA  had visited Puttenahalli Lake and shown great interest in our floating wetland platforms. She informed the officers in charge of setting up the Bio-diversity Park at Madiwala Lake about our innovation and they in turn visited our lake on 21st August 2017. We took Mr. Chidananda, Dy Range Forest Officer and Dr. Padmavathi, Project Coordinator, around…

‘Faire’, in French, means ‘to do’ or ‘to make’ and that is at the heart of what Vigyana Habba aims to achieve. The fair was aimed to encourage a scientific spirit among children that questions, probes and finds solutions. It was not just a show and tell event - participants as well as visitors learned by “doing” stuff. On Saturday, Aug 19th, 2017, over 44 teams participated in the second edition of the Soul Kere Science Fair - Vigyana Habba. The participating students were from grades 1 to 12 of various school and communities in the neighborhood of the lake.…

Independence Day 2017 turned out to be a bright, sunny, yet cool, day – a typical Bengaluru day, it would appear.  Yet, that morning we woke up to a rapidly flowing river outside our house that had completely submerged the main road leading into S.T. Bed Layout, Koramangala. A few hapless souls could be seen wading against the tide in at least a foot of water. Our compound was flooded, too. And murky water had entered many houses in more low-lying parts of the neighbourhood. A walk around the area a little before noon on Tuesday revealed that some roads…

Invariably these days visitors to our Puttenahalli Lake in J.P. Nagar 7th Phase ask one question - what are those floating platforms in the water? Those of you who follow our updates on the lake would know that these are the Artificial Floating Islands we had first introduced in June last year. That was also when we signed an MoU with the BMS College of Engineering to test the lake water every month. Three prototype islands were joined by more. The plant species in the platforms increased and the water sampling points went up from four to seven. The BMS reports…

25 years after the 74th Constitutional Amendment (Nagarapalika Act) prescribed effective citizen participation through ward committees, to bring in accountability of the local councillor to the community, an opportunity is at last being given to citizens to get into ward committees.  Till now, if at all the ward committees were constituted; councillors were themselves nominating the individual members and registered associations who would sit on ward committees.  It was not surprising that the ward committees used to be filled with the councillors’ own party-men and cronies, defeating the purpose of the ward committees. The two seats for registered associations used…

A thriving Puttenahalli Lake full of water is a great sight. If there is one person happier than us at PNLIT, it must be Yellappa, the guy who got the fishing contract for our lake. Yallappa and his people fishing. Pic: Usha Rajagopalan About a year ago he had released fingerlings of several species such as the Indian Catla, Rohu, Mrigal and the Chinese Carp (Common, Silver and Grass). He also introduced Snakehead, called Varal locally which according to the Fisheries Department, is not grown much in our city. It is expensive and is a delicious fish. Snakehead (varal). Pic:…

  'Connect with Nature' is the theme for this year's World Environment Day. Pic: Bhoomi College World Environment Day is here again, with the theme “Connecting people to nature” this year. The motto is to “get outdoors and into nature, and appreciate its beauty and to think about how we are part of nature and how intimately we depend on it.” Like every year, this year too many organisations have planned several programmes in Bengaluru to celebrate the environment day on June 5th and even on the days before or after the environment day. If you are interested in participating…

With an area of 272 acres, Madiwala lake is one of the three largest lakes in Bengaluru. Located in South Bengaluru, it comes under the administrative control of Karnataka Forest Dept (KFD) who is responsible for its upkeep and maintenance. Butterfly park with the scientist for design and planting butterfly attracting plants. The lake had a lot of hyacinth growth and sewage inflow, directly and indirectly from the open storm water drain (SWD) that runs inside the lake from South-west corner to North-east corner. Karnataka government decided in 2016 to develop it into a bio-diversity park, on the recommendation of…

The ongoing case at the National Green Tribunal (and the frequent fires!) has helped keep the Bellandur lake in the news. The hearings on the petition filed by D Kupendra Reddy and another suo moto case when the fires happened some months ago, have resulted in a number of directions to the respondents including the state, and agencies like KSPCB and KLCDA. In its latest order on April 19, 2017, the NGT said: “All local authorities shall ensure that no untreated sewage water is permitted to enter into Bellandur Lake” - sounds familiar? Here is the chronological summary of developments…