Lake chokes as Court order is ‘misinterpreted’

Lake chokes as Court order is ‘misinterpreted’

Divya Gandhi
— Photo: K. Gopinathan

A SLOW DEATH: A view of Bangalore’s Hebbal Lake covered with water hyacinth.
Bangalore: As the city’s civic authorities, non-governmental organisations and a hotel chain battle over rights to develop the Hebbal Lake, the 150-acre water body is now a picture of neglect, colonised almost entirely by the invasive aquatic water-hyacinth.

Hebbal Lake was leased to East India Hotels Ltd (the parent company of Oberoi Group) by the Lake Development Authority (LDA) on a public-private partnership model.

The maintenance lapse, according to the LDA, owes to the Oberoi Group’s “misinterpretation” of a High Court Order that restrained “further development” of four lakes, including Hebbal, leased to private companies.

The order of November 2008 came after a public interest litigation petition was filed in the High Court by an NGO questioning the legality of lake privatisation.

While the hotel chain had planned to set up a recreational facility at Hebbal Lake, the PIL contended that lakes were a “common property resource” and of ecological value.

Nowhere in its order does the court appear to have barred the lease-holder from maintaining the lake, C.S. Vedant, Chief Executive Officer of LDA told The Hindu, adding, “The lease-holder has misinterpreted the court order to mean that they are not permitted to maintain the lake,” said Mr. Vedant.

“The court order has only stalled further development in the four lakes. But each lease-holder seems to have interpreted the order in a different way.”

As a result, it has been nearly a year that the lake was de-weeded, something that could undermine the wetland ecosystem, according to ornithologist M.B. Krishna.

While a certain amount of water hyacinth is desirable as nesting sites for aquatic birds and to control pollution, the floating weed has to be kept in check to prevent it from smothering the lake, he explained. “The weed is known to multiply exponentially in a short span of time, reducing oxygen and blocking sunlight. This, along with the presence of sewage, can harm aquatic plants, fish and other aquatic animals.”

A representative of the Oberoi Group told The Hindu: “As per the court order we cannot develop or clean the lake. It could amount to a violation of the order,” adding that EIH had spent Rs. 6 lakh cleaning the lake out of a total investment of Rs. 8 crore already incurred in work such as installing a fence, dredging the lake bed and building a sewage treatment plant.

The High Court in its order had directed the lessees not to undertake “any further development in their respective lakes,” and “to avoid commercial activities so that the ecology [is] maintained and made available to the common man.”

It had also restrained LDA “from entering into any fresh agreement with companies to develop any lake in the State”. The court had also recommended that the 15-year lease period should not be renewed once it expired and that the entrance fee be reduced.