The Koliwad Committee has submitted a report on environmental violations in and around the city’s lakes that the government cannot ignore, and the National Green Tribunal recently acted tough on lake encroachments by builders. Yet, former environment secretary and green activist Dr. A.N. Yellappa Reddy is a worried man. Deccan Chronicle’s Shravan Regret Iyer found the former forest service officer wondering aloud if enough was being done to save Bengaluru’s dying lakes.
According to a recent study by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), as many as 100 of the 105 remaining lakes in the city have been encroached upon, many by builders, but a third of the lakes are also surrounded by slums. Some 85 lakes have lost their catchment area. Worse, sewage is being pumped into nearly all the lakes. It is in this dire context that the NGT ordered that the buffer zone around lakes be extended from 30 metres to 75 metres.
“That’s a sound direction from the tribunal. The worry is, the state government been rapped by even the Supreme Court in the past on these issues and issued many directions, but the state government hasn’t taken any of it seriously. It persists in irresponsible behaviour,” Reddy says.
Pollution has become a many-headed monster in our lakes. From building waste to sewage to heavy metals, everything is being dumped into them. “We are creating havens for disease-causing bacteria and viruses to discharging industrial effluents, waste, including medical waste, etc. When micro-organisms grow on medical waste, they even develop immunity against the medicines we may take. When we are hit by diseases caused by them, we tend to take higher and higher doses of medicines, in turn damaging our body organs. Are we even aware of all that’s happening to us?”
There’s a new but equally worrisome issue, he notes gravely. As the city generates increasing amounts of e-waste – Bengaluru is now the third largest producer of such waste – heavy metals are entering into the human body.
“Electronic waste generates a lot of heavy metals -- chromium, cadmium, mercury, lead and others. They cause cancers, degrade the kidneys, etc. Many children are being born with deformities and disabilities caused by heavy metal contamination”.
What can we do to stop all this, I ask. “The only remedy or impact mitigation has to be at source. Industries that discharge waste into lakes should understand what they are doing to all of us. They should follow the Extended Producer Responsibility policy and take care of the ecosystem around them. They should submit audit reports on what kinds of raw materials they are using, what goods they are producing and what waste they are pushing into the land, water and air and how they are treating the waste. Permission to set up and run industries should be based on these reports”, Reddy says. “Of what use is a drug you produce to cure one disease in a distant place if in the process you are going to push chemicals and medical waste into the environment around your factory and cause harm to thousands of people living nearby?!”
Saving the lakes from contamination is one thing, but how can we save the lakes from totally disappearing due to encroachment by builders as has happened to dozens of lakes over the last two decades?
“Professional ethics. Engineers who make building plans are not illiterate. They know exactly what problems they are creating when they make plans to construct buildings around water bodies. But they are too intent on making money to bother about this. In any case, the government is in the hands of their builders. Money and muscle power prevail. Only when these ground realities change can we hope to save the last remaining lakes of the city,” Reddy signs off, almost with an air of resignation.
