Bengaluru: Koliwad helping' sharks?

Bengaluru: Encroachers have been known to shrink lakes, but what if government babus do the same with a mere stroke of a pen? Ibblur lake near Bellandur has steadily shrunk over the years thanks to encroachers.

If  they need any more help they have got it now as a re-survey by the revenue department to establish the lake’s original spread has found it smaller by two acres than previously thought.  

While an original map of the lake and even Google Maps indicate that the lake was spread over 18.6 acres, the revenue department, which re-surveyed the lake on the instructions of the Koliwad Committee has strangely declared that it was spread over only 16.27 acres!

Ask Urban Department assistant commissioner,  L.C Nagaraj and he says that while a lake can be encroached on, it is impossible for its original boundary to change over the decades.

“If a certified survey map has identified an expanse of a lake, the boundary cannot shrink in re-surveys. There could be an error at some stage. This has to be corrected,” he maintains.

Pointing out that the lake has been steadily encroached on over the years, Mr Mukund Kumar, a member of the Ibblur Lake Forum, says the very purpose of the re-survey to protect it from more land sharks, seems defeated now.

“In the early 2000s lake land was handed over to the BDA for construction of the Outer Ring Road. Later, as real estate boomed in Bellandur, the lake area steadily shrank in the face of encroachment. The basic principle of re-surveying lake boundaries is to determine their current spread compared to their original size. But the whole process now seems defeated,” he regrets, claiming that there are some glaring discrepancies in the latest revenue survey maps published by the revenue department on the www.karnataka.gov website.

“Ibblur lake is already prone to encroachments on all sides, whether it is by roads or  residential and commercial establishments. Such discrepancies could further facilitate encroachments and violations,” he warns.   

Interestingly, the Koliwad Committee, which has identified over 11,000 acres of encroached government land across the city, has neither made any reference to this shrunk boundary nor highlighted the Ibbur lake encroachments in its status report.

When contacted,  committee member, Suresh Kumar said it had not yet released its final report and he would look into the matter.