One more lake make-over project announced

Sorry Rithesh, i had not seen your write up earlier. You can count me in on your RTI Project. Just let me know what you would like done.

Regards

RKC

Hi Sanjay,

Where do you stay Sanjay? When & where can we meet to discuss next steps?

I live in Whitefield & PSA in Indiranagar. I have no problem commuting to any place as long as I get enough time and sufficient notice to rework my schedule, to reach the place.

PSA Garu, are you up to throwing your hat into this venture?

Regards,

Chari

Some questions from my side.

a. Please provide me with the list of 187 lakes identified for this project.  What is the budget for each lake? 

b. Please provide me with the list of 25 lakes already identified as improved. 

c. Regarding Hebbal Lake

     Q1. Which authority was responsible for this project?  LDA or BBMP or BDA or any other?  Please provide the name.

     Q2. How much money was spent on this project?

     Q3. Who was the contractor responsible for executing this project?

     Q4. What was the scope of the project?

     Q5.  Is water hyacinth removal part of the scope of the project?

     Q6.  Who was responsible for monitoring this project?

     Q7.  How many visits were to have been made by the concerned official to monitor this project?

     Q8. Please provide the dates on which the official visited the lake to monitor the project?

     Q9.  Has the payment already been made for this project?

     Q10. What checks were made by the concerned official before releasing the payment?  (can word this better).

Srivathsa

I would like to add the following Ritesh

(1) Copy of any consultancy report / project reports which describes the plan of this project

(2) Where is this 900 crores allocated from - i.e., source of this money.  BBMP tax/ ad revenue, state govt grant etc.

(3)How is BBMP collaborating with BWSSB / LDA etc. to prevent untreated sewage inflow into the lake. Who are the experts in BBMP on water / watershed management - qualifications, expertise etc.

Please let me know if you would like me to file any RTIs among the list  being collated.

Dear Sanjay,

No issues for me to follow Praja procedures. I think most of the comments above have covered everything that one needs to know. Maybe at best a question or two about long term maintenace aspect of this Rs.900 crore budget may be asked. Does the 900 crores include maintenance or is it being spent one time for merely immediate releif?

Best of luck with your efforts. Let me know if there is anything else you require from my side.

BTW, I believe Dr. Ashwin Mahesh and Mr. Ramesh Sriram both of ABIDe are personally pursuing rejuvenation 39 lakes in the Mahadevpura constituency. Any point liaising with them on this RTI? They may already have the answers to several of these queries.

ritesh.

can you also inquire about the inlets to these lakes?

is their any sort of treatment to control the amount bod?

also many of the lakes are naturally connected. one spills into another. are these links being strenghtened also?

many of these links are lost. are there any plans to replace these lost links or find substitutes for them?

(lakes are not stand alone entities)

Hi Sanjay,

For inlet details I suppose something like this will cover most of our concerns:

1. Do all SW drains lead to one lake or the other to discharge their water flow?

2. Does such SW going through open drains get treated before getting discharged into lakes?

3. Do lakes also receive liquid household waste including black and grey water and if so are these subject to treatment prior to they being discharged into lakes?

4. What treatment system, if any, exists for Raja Kaluve water disgorging into lakes?

5. Is it a fact that sewage water is often let into open drains and if so what steps have been taken to prevent / correct such 'leakages' ?

Something on the above lines ought to cover most of the concerns

Regards

FYI,

RaviD, in this post, had about two months back quoted this DH article ( 33 lakes to get new lease of life) about the 21 lakes and 12 lakes to be taken up for development by BBMP and BDA respectively.

Some excepts from the DH report:

.... BDA will take up rejuvenation work on 12 lakes at a cost of Rs 104 crore, the BBMP will take up development of the remaining 21 lakes, at an estimated cost of Rs 190 crore.......Bangalore South MP Ananth Kumar said, the rejuvenation programme is expected to be completed within 12 to 18 months. The project includes - clearing encroachments, setting up sewerage treatment plans, besides strengthening the lake boundary........an amount of Rs 100 crore has been earmarked in the BBMP budget for the rejuvenation programme.....A sewerage treatment plan will be set up in each lake at an approximate cost of Rs 2 crore.......Urban Development department had been directed to submit a report on the status of the 127 lakes that had been recommended for rejuvenation by the Lakshman Rao Committee in 1988.......

the latest media report is about these 127 lakes, 123 of which are in BBMP limits...

Based on this, I have feeling that you have a set of questions on the project as a whole and just of individual lakes. We should be able to understand the scope of the project, the funding structure, expected timelines etc.

Hi Sanjay,

All your RTI Questions are just fine. Just go ahead and file it. If we get satisfactory answers to even 60% of the questions we should be lucky.

My question to Praja-ites would be after we receive the answers to these questions, what do we do? Does Praja only end up being an outlet for our pent up feelings or can we actually ensure some action by the authorities?

Count me in if you need numbers to take a delegation to meet whomsoever we are required to meet, if that is the way forward.

Best wishes

 This presentation may give some insight into BBMPs thinking on lakes.  Stumbled upon it during my water research.   This may have some of the answers we are seeking through the RTIs.

http://www.nalms.org/resources/pdf/E_2_nadaf.pdf

Looking forward to comments from Prajas.  I need some time to digest this presentation before posting anything.

A skeletal website is up for lakes by the BBMP.  Nothing worked except the front page.

www.bbmplakes.info/lake/ 

Something to watch as info gets added.

------------------ addition --------

Website was not working when I tried last.  Seems to work now. There is some information and hopefully, this forms the elements of a data base.  Now the question is... I think a website such as this and other solid, published documentation should form the basis of a public record clearly identifying the lake, its capacity, inflow, outflow, etc.  It is important also to not only identify the lakes extent and encroachments, but also to identify and notify a buffer zone and wtaer drainage scheme.  Something like that needs a clearly debated and declared policy.

A start.  Now how can this website be made useful?

I think the BBMP Lakes Website is a pretty good beginning. I tried out the site & links worked quite well. The search feature worked quite perfectly. There was data on many lakes, but information is scanty - hopefully, they populate it better in the future.

@Sanjay

      Both the www.nalms.org pdf link and the bbmp lakes links are not working as of today morning. Did the nalms folks pull the pdf out of the website ? 

sanjayv :

There is no mention of SWDs leading to these local lakes. That would be a very good way to do ground water recharge

Without SWDs, there is no way to supply rain water & charge the lakes. Though it has not been mentioned in the presentation, it may have been budgeted elsewhere & may be pursued separately (restoration of raja kaluvas away from lakes may not form part of this effort - the various maps depict some of these raja kaluvas between lakes in various lake systems).

Instead of preventing storm water from coming to these lakes and separating SWD and sewage, the idea seems to be to treat the mixed waste stream that flows in. Why?

I think what they plan is to build STPs to treat water coming in through SWDs as there is widespread contamination despite precautions - most of the raja kaluvas are left open. Sewage must be prevented to flow into lakes, but due to slums & encroachments, defecation in SWDs may be hard to stop.

when there is actual storm water inflow during rains, these STPs will get overwhelmed

I dont think this will happen. When there is heavy rain, water can possibly be led directly into the lake, bypassing the STP. Initially, during rains, some dirty water is sure to flow, but this can be stored for cleaning at the STP. When water purity improves, it can be led directly to the lake/s.

We could confirm this during the meet with Prof.Ramachandra.

These STPs, their running and maintanence just remain a recurring expenditure in the city budget. The storm water drains will continue to be full of sewage that remains a health hazard

Quite correct, but do we have a choice ? With poverty at such high levels & monitoring so poor, I don't think we have any other option.

On the positive side, creation of greater bangalore by including the 7 CMCs & 1 TMC /inclusion of new wards will result in extension of sewerage services to all of these areas. Once this progresses, the demands against open drains is sure to be stronger & once they begin closing them, this problem will start reducing.

Friends,

The only rational solution to SWD not overflowing or not taking contaminated water to join any lake is to ensure it gets treated and infiltrated to recharge ground water table "at the point where rain falls".

This can be easily done with covered SWDs and in one fell sweep we would have solved the entire run offs from roads into open drains, overflowing and hapless children falling into it.

Poor or rich, our country needs a drastic change in its mindset and we can really make the entire city beautiful, clean and pollution free.

Hope to have a meangingful discussion on Saturday with Prof Ramachandran at the new venue in IISc

Hi Naveen,

For one thing not all "foreign" solutions are expensive. It is a question of calculating the ROI over a reasonable period of time and also taking into account peripheral advantages of zero maintenance and absence of Abhishek like instances.

Yes, roads need to be designed scientifically in which the emphasis should be on making surfaces pervious for water to infiltrate. As everyone knows the rate at which rain falls and the rate at which water on road surfaces can be expected to be infiltrated or absorbed is very different. The matrix tanks under the roads at the edges and drainage cells below the porous concrete or bitumen across the surface of the road merely help to 'perch' the water for eventual infiltration over time.

It is a simple solution. Reducing the strength of the matrix tank and drainage cells will make it unsustainable (whereby I mean it would require constant repairs / changes etc involving maintenance) After research over 40 years the ideal strength has been arrived at.

I understand BBMP budgets something like Rs. 1 crore per KM. The ecological roads suggested by me are much less. A recent example is the Vittal Mallya Road being remodelled by UB & Prestige Groups at an estimated cost of Rs.10 crores. I have offered to do it at about 3/4th the cost to make it look like a portion of Champs Elysee!

B/R