The Lakes Are No More Stoic

The Lakes Are No More Stoic
The rape of its lake ecology leads a city to its watery grave

SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU
Outlook

The sea can, of course, be tempestuous but can lakes be anything but placid? Small or sprawling, these land-locked water bodies have always been celebrated metaphors for serenity. But such pleasant associations were rudely jolted in Bangalore a week ago when the rains came. The lakes unleashed fury; in some cases they breached their bounds, and in most cases they overflowed to enter bedrooms and kitchens in both slums and upmarket localities.

Compared to Mumbai's deluge this monsoon, the rains that flooded Bangalore were not that heavy. On the worst day, October 23, rainfall touched 120.7 mm. By Met records, it was Bangalore's wettest day in 100 years. The normal annual rainfall for the city is about 970 mm, but so far it has already experienced 1,533.3 mm.

What caused the fury of the lakes? Before donning its 'outsourcing' identity, and much before it became a Garden City, Bangalore was a city built as a lake economy. Lakes formed part of the basic grid around which the city was built. There is a logical reason for this: the city had no water source other than the Arkavathy that ran thinly on the outskirts, so Kempe Gowda, the city's founder more than 400 years ago, planned his township around lakes and tanks. Right through the ages, Haider Ali, Tipu Sultan, the Wodeyars and the Britishers in their cantonment recognised this simple fact and accorded high importance to the preservation of the city's lakes.

In the early part of the 20th century, official statistics demonstrate that there were nearly 400 lakes in the city. Even 20 years ago, the number hovered around 250, but today it's sadly reduced to 64. "Most importantly, the city's tank system was interconnected; if one overflowed, it reached the other and restored the balance. Floods were unheard of," says Prof K.V. Rajagopal, a researcher.

So what has happened to all the lakes? As a result of rapid urbanisation and zooming land prices, the lakes and tank-beds have become precious real estate. The interconnecting paths of the lakes, their catchment areas and storm water drains have all been encroached upon by the land mafia. Worse, over the years, successive governments have regularised the encroachments. This is precisely what led to the recent flooding of the city, wreaking devastation in thousands of homes.

In the hour of crisis, the politicians spoke the right words. They called for relinking of all water bodies in and around the city, and the restoration of drainage and water-flow systems. The government, they said, has to formulate a plan to translocate the people living on encroached lands along tank-beds.

A 1954 Bangalore Development Committee report lists a number of open spaces and tank-beds—all of which have all vanished without trace in the last decade or so. But historians like T.R. Anantharamu point out that lakes have always been a casualty in the city's expansion, only it has become more mindless in the last decade. He points out: "In 1898-99, when there was an outbreak of plague, the Malleswaram and Basavangudi extensions were created. The magnificent Karanji lake had to be sacrificed to build Basavangudi. The other big extensions of Bangalore—like Wilson Gardens, Jayanagar, btm Layout, Banashankari, J.P. Nagar and Koramangala—have taken away 28 huge lakes." In fact, the local names of most new extensions of Bangalore are of the lakes they were built on.

Here's a sample of Bangalore's well-known landmarks that stand on lake-land: Kanteerva Stadium on Sampangi Lake; City bus-stand on Dharmambudhi Lake; National Games Sports Village on Koramangala tank-bed; Football Stadium on Shoolay Lake; Krishnaraja Market on Siddhikatte Lake and Lingarajapuram Flyover on Silver Lake. Peter Colaco, a historian of cantonment Bangalore, says: "Miller's Tank accommodates an auditorium, billards club, badminton club, a school, hospital and assorted offices.The storm-drains are full of debris and quite often built upon in violation of all rules. So where does the water go? One monsoon, Miller's Tank filled up ten feet high. The trapped residents of a girl's hostel had to be rescued by boat, till the water was pumped out."

The fact that IT companies have sprung up in every lane due to lack of government regulations has only added to Bangalore's miseries. In fact, the residents of Koramangala, an upmarket techie locality, knocked on the doors of the high court recently, pointing out that "scores of storm water drains have been filled up to make room for car parks". There are four primary storm water drains in the city. Their getting choked and encroached contributed significantly to the recent floods.

There is a Lake Development Authority which looks into conservation and rejuvenation, but its role is not well defined vis-a-vis other government bodies. Most water bodies come under the forest department, the revenue department, the city corporation (BMP) or the city development authority (BDA). The government now says that it may hand over lake maintenance to BDA or BMP. Lakes in the city are, after all, not merely for beautification, they are integral to its functioning. One newspaper columnist compared them to kidneys: "If the city's gardens and tree-cover were lungs, the inter-connected lakes played the role of kidneys, flushing out excess water when the city gets soaked to the bones."

M. Shashidhar Reddy, member of the National Disaster Management Authority set up recently by the prime minister, said the body would look into these man-made disasters and highlight this issue when the National Plan is prepared. "Tanks and lakes were an essential part of the ecosystem. They had the inbuilt capacity to take on nature's fury when it rained heavily," he told Outlook. "But encroachment of the tanks and lakes have destroyed the eco-chain. The flooding caused by heavy rains is not limited to Bangalore; we have this disaster waiting to happen in almost all key cities in India."