Ponds, SWDs encroached upon

The city’s rapid urbanisation has resulted in more than more than 10,472 acres of tank bed encroached in Bengaluru Urban and Rural districts.

Additionally, over the years, 1,256.3 acres of ponds and dykes (called katte and kunte in Kannada) as well as 501.25 acres of SWDs have been encroached, said the Joint Committee for Tank Bed Encroachments.

Traditionally,

katte and

kuntes are artificially created receptacles of stored water. The committee estimates that there are 3,271 such ponds in and around Bengaluru spanning over 8,119 acres. Bengaluru Urban district alone has 6,908 acres of pond land, of which more than 11 per cent (or, 823 acres) has been encroached.

Not surprisingly, government agencies have been found to have encroached ponds in over 574 instances covering 276.8 acres.