Saving rajakaluves: Bengaluru needs a drain brain

After severe flooding in North Bengaluru, from which people were rescued in boats, it is clear that decades of unbridled greed and corruption have destroyed the city’s networks of lakes and rajakaluves. Now that the political class admits encroachment is the problem, will the BBMP act?

By Hameed Ashraf | NT

During his rounds of the flood-hit areas in the city, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai attributed the flooding near the Kendriya Vihar premises to the unprecedented rains. He also admitted that many buildings and layouts have come up on storm water drains and kodis (weirs).“Several residential complexes built on the stormwater drains or its buffer zones face the consequences whenever there are heavy rains. We are serving notices to those buildings which have come up on stormwater drains or their buffer zones. We will start a drive soon,” Bommai said.

As rapid urbanization began, with greedy builders eager to get their hands on prime property almost 90 percent of the buffer zones have been encroached. Layouts have been formed on these buffer zones. Kanteerava Stadium and National Games Village were once lakes. Campuses of buildings like Manyata Tech Park, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) and the National Games Village have been built on buffer zones of rajakaluves. That is one reason why these areas are so severely impacted by heavy rain.

The city of many monikers, Bengaluru was once celebrated as the city of lakes. Back in the early 16th century, the area we now call Bengaluru was fortified by Vijayanagara chieftain Kempegowda. Their most formidable challenge was access to water - since Bengaluru is located at a height of 900 metres, water was scarce. This problem was addressed through the construction of some 1600 tanks and lakes, first by Kempegowda, then the Wodeyars and the British. These lakes and their catchment areas were connected by a network of rajakaluves. However, over the years, both the lakes and rajakaluves, were progressively encroached and taken over in the name of development. The result – rainwater has nowhere to go.

Residents say prominent builders have taken charge, dictating growth by encroaching upon buffer zones around storm water drains that link the water bodies. This uncontrolled encroachment of lakes has already led to flooding of many developed areas in the vicinity of the water bodies.

“The blatant and rampant pollution in the largest lake of Bangalore is wrong. The government allowing such rampant pollution to happen year after year is blasphemous. It doesn’t take too much for the government to go after the industries. Something needs to be done soon,” Raj Shekhar from citizen matters forum said.

Having given up planned growth decades ago, the city is now trying to evolve organically. Much of the damage has already been done to Bengaluru’s green cover due to rapid urbanisation and discharge of effluents in the water bodies.

Shankar V., a resident of Koramangala, notes, “Rajakaluves need to be maintained well, whether they are encroached or not. Besides the domestic sewage, industrial effluents flow directly into them without any treatment.”

B Reddy Sankar Babu, Special commissioner, (Estate Horticulture Forest Lakes and Education) said, “We are serving notices to the residential buildings and complexes that have been constructed on buffer zones or storm water drains as they face the worst consequences during the rains. A drive will soon be initiated following the Chief Minister’s directions,” he said.

'BBMP needs action plan to demolish encroachments'

-D.S.Rajshekar,  President, Citizens Action Forum

he reason for the recurring floods in Bengaluru began decades ago. It is when the government authorities and other officials neglected their duties and allowed encroachments of water bodies, Rajakaluves and their buffer zones. As the property prices began to shoot up in the city due to pleasant climate and other features, the greedy builders wanted to grab the opportunity in order to make big money. They converted these zones into residential and commercial buildings with the civic officials deliberately ignoring the problems faced by the common man.

Every time Bengaluru records heavy rain residents know it means trouble. Things were different even twenty years ago. As an old Bangalorean I can say on record that we never had this kind of flooding. Even congested places like Avenue road, Majestic where the bus stand itself is a lake bed, would not be waterlogged. Today, we’re using boats to rescue people from homes and tech parks. The Manyata Tech Park, a sprawling private commercial-cumresidential area is home to some top IT and IT-enabled companies.