Students to make lakes ‘healthy’

Students to make lakes ‘healthy’
Deccan Herald

The Agara lake on Sarjapur Road will become a ‘study site’ for over 120 students from Bangalore University and Christ College during a one-day workshop on ‘Revival of Wetlands in Bangalore’.

The Agara lake on Sarjapur Road will become a ‘study site’ for over 120 students from Bangalore University and Christ College during a one-day workshop on ‘Revival of Wetlands in Bangalore’.

The workshop, being organised on November 8 by the BMP Biodiversity Management Committee (BioMC), aims at involving the student community in making City lakes pollution-free. Environmentalist Yellappa Reddy, BioMC chairman, said Agara was chosen because the 170-acre lake is the largest lake where the wetland technology has been successfully adopted.

“Here storm water and sewage water are let into the lake after they go through the three interventions. This cost-effective method results in the water being aerated and the lake getting restored,” he said.


“This is the first time that students are being involved to study and ascertain data on the technology and explore methods that can be adopted to make the City lakes healthy,” he said, and “if students adopt lakes, this workshop will have served its purpose”.

In fact, he’d like to recommend to the BDA to let the Christ College adopt the Agara lake and monitor it on regularly. “This way, the students would also take this issue seriously,” he said. Dr Antony P U, Head, Department of Zoology, Christ College, said the Green Army, the environment cell of the college, and the Environment Science Department of BU, would participate in the workshop, which includes a field trip and talks by experts.

“An intensive awareness campaign will follow in the next few months, where the students will interact with various government bodies in this regard,” he said.

The Pollution Control Board, the Lake Development Authority, BWSSB, the Karnataka State Biodiversity Board and others will be part of the campaign.