Bengaluru now has an actionplan to restore its waterbodies after the Karnataka High Court accepted the report of a committee appointed to prepare a framework for the preservation of the city's lakes. The court had appointed the committee headed by Justice NK Patil in November last year to examine the ground realities while formulating a framework for restoration of lakes.
Accepting the committee's report on March 3, the court ordered the state government to restore 189 lakes in the city by 2014.
The committee was formed in response to a public interest litigation filed by Environment Support Group in 2008, a non-profit, seeking better management of lakes. The court's order sets a legal framework to carry out restoration work in the lakes. It also indicates the extent to which the lakes have been encroached, polluted, and protected. “Such information is being made available in the public domain for the very first time,” said Leo Saldanha, coordinator of Environment Support Group.
The report, submitted on February 21, 2011, made several recommendations, including prevention of sewage from entering the lakes and developing some of them to augment city's water supply. The high court by accepting the contents of the report has upheld the rights of traditional users for example, if the lake is used traditionally for washing clothes, dhobi ghats, are to be constructed when the lake is taken up for restoration.
The action plan also called for enhancing buffer zones and removal of encroachments in the lake area and catchment. This will be identified by a survey to protect the entire watershed. "Buildings, resorts, hotels are nowadays being constructed at the edge of water bodies, and result in the loss of lake frontage," said Saldanha. The action plan has called for a 30 metre buffer from the lake bodies. If the lake is spread beyond 40 hectare, the buffer will increase by two metre for every five hectare of the lake body, he added.
/articles/bengaluru-lakes-get-facelift-down-earth