The lake is a large 50 hectare water-spread. More than Rs. 30 crore has been spent on its rehabilitation, much of it in desilting, creating a bund, making an island and putting up a fence, and also on a sewage treatment plant to treat 10 million litres per day.
One would imagine that with this kind of investment things would improve and the lake would be full of water. Imagine again.
The ability of the Indian system to be able to indulge in an exercise of capital expenditure but then not be able to spend enough to keeping the system running well is legendary. Welcome to Jakkur lake, Bengaluru.
A dedicated band of citizens have been running pillar to post and expending energies to keep the eco-system going. Yet in parts of the lake there is a fish kill of large proportion and the lake stinks.
The fishermen are a forlorn lot, unable to carry out fishing activities because the water is simply not good enough for the fish to survive, let alone breed. The birds too are disappearing.
On one side the fence has been opened as a road. All sorts of vehicles churn up dust and occasionally people chuck garbage into the lake itself.
The sewage treatment plant struggles to work and meet quality requirements of reducing B.O.D. and remove nitrates and phosphates. Raw sewage comes in from one end of the lake.
All matters of men and institutions have visited the lake, from the Chairman of the State Pollution Control Board to all kinds of engineers and commissioners. Yet, on the ground, the system is slowly falling apart.
Here was on display a global methodology to manage water systems in a city called the Integrated Urban Water Management.
All kinds of water — rainwater, groundwater, piped water, waste-water — were being managed to fulfill all kinds of needs: agricultural, drinking, domestic, social, cultural. Visitors came from far and beyond, yet the city is unable to recognise and manage what it itself had developed as a model.
Final blowNow there is talk that the sewage treatment plant will be upgraded but all the waters will be taken away to feed a thermal power plant coming up nearby. The lake and the ecosystem will be dealt the final blow.
Upstream of Jakkur is Allalasandra lake. Again a recipient of crores of rupees. An active citizens’ group managed to get the lake cleaned. In parts of the lake the stench is unbearable and it looks like a close-by milk processing unit is unable to handle all its effluents and this ends up in the lake. Capital expenditure, yet no sustainable benefits.
Further upstream is Puttenhalli lake. A retired scientist and a group of community volunteers have been struggling to clean up the raw sewage entering this wetland. Yet the sewage flow has only increased and the institution concerned has no answer when asked when the sewage will be taken away and treated in a plant.
The inability of the water governance system in the city to understand and manage problems is staggering. A multiplicity of institutions passing the buck, the regulator helpless, and citizen’s groups fighting a losing battle is the feature of the city and its lakes.
Unless we have an integrated urban water management institution, responsible and accountable for all waters in a city, and unless we empower the institution with the right skill-set and the right monies, we will be doing the three-step tango — one step forward and two steps backward.
In a time of drought, climate change and scarce water resource, such incompetence can hardly show solutions. Prepare to reform governance or prepare to collapse.
zenrainman@gmail.com
