Lake in the eye of a storm

Lake in the eye of a storm


Y Maheswara Reddy First Published : 17 Jun 2010 10:16:25 AM IST
Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials seem to lack the will to fence the Devarabeesanahalli Lake, going by the abrupt manner in which the work was brought to an end.
On May 26, the director of the Karnataka Public Lands Corporation had taken two BBMP officials to task for not fencing the lake according to the survey conducted by the revenue department. The officials were asked to re-fence the lake and also explain the lapse. KPLC was all set to file a criminal complaint against the officials under Section 192A of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act.
The revenue department’s survey report had found that 13.21 guntas of lake land had been encroached upon by Adarsha Developers. BBMP officials had removed the fence that had been put up and dug up the road to erect concrete poles to facilitate proper fencing. However, the work was abandoned after Manjula, the KPLC commissioner was transferred to Mysore.
“I think that encroachers will have a free hand. BBMP officials failed to protect the lake land. The surveyors also failed to survey the lake land properly,” said H Pilla Reddy, a social worker and politician.
However, Jagannatha Rao, the assistant conservator of forests, has denied that the fencing was stopped abruptly and claimed that fencing work is under progress. “I will not allow the encroachment of lake land. I am determined to recover the encroached land from builders,” said Rao.
When asked about the filling up of holes dug to put up concrete poles for fencing, he said: “I will file a police complaint against those who have filled up the holes dug up for the fencing.”
Manjula said that the revenue department officials wanted to file a complaint at the HAL police station against the BBMP officials but police refused to register a complaint.
Purushotham, the Inspector of Police at HAL police station has, however, denied that revenue officials had approached him with the intention of filing a complaint against BBMP officials.