Garden city Plus English Weekly Newspaper
Editor: T Ramesh
VOLUME - 4 ISSUE 22
Bangalore
April 29 - May 05, 2017
PAGES - 8
Rs 2
www.gardencityplus.com
Residents Rejoice over NGT’s Order I
t is indeed a miracle that people are still surviving the froth with toxic contents in Bellandur Lake area with several houses and apartments around the Lake fighting for existence since years with the officials and the powers that be, not bothering to heed to the numerous requests, appeals, memorandums submitted at all levels to look in to the matter on a war footing to save people. It was a fight of the survival of the fittest. All of a sudden the residents of the area woke up in mid February to witness a fire that broke out in the Lake itself. This prompted the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to take it in to its hands and hear in a suo moto case recognizing the seriousness of the grave injustice being done to the area and done for sure by none other than some industries allowing its effluents into the Lake and polluting it to froth making navigation difficult even on roads for people who were totally exposed to danger. A week back, the NGT passed stringent measures instructing and ordering to shut down all industrial units around Bellandur Lake came as sigh of relief to the residents of the area in particular and all the other citizens in genera. The green bench, headed by its chairperson, Justice Swatanter Kumar, said that a joint inspection team -comprising senior officials from different government agencies -should check whether the effluents released by each industry are within permissible limits. It is estimated that over a hundred industries function in the vicinity of Bellandur Lake and that a large number of them are garment and electroplating enterprises. "We're surveying a 2-km radius to identify the exact number of industries,"
Development additional chief s e c re t ar y Mahendra Jain told the green bench that 480 MLD of untreated sewage flows into the Bellandur lake, of which about 250 MLD gets
KSPCB chairperson Lakshman. treated. The bench set a two-week deadline to However, the bench noted that the the state government to formulate an action plan to "completely prevent and control pollution in Bellandur Lake" and carry out a one-time exercise to free the lake of silt, waste and chemicals. Over a hundred industries around Bellandur lake will come under the scanner for polluting the city's largest water body.Dumping municipal waste or debris in and around the lake will invite a penalty of `5 lakh. These are among the many directives ordered by the National Green Tribunal on Wednesday. The bench also barred dumping of municipal waste or construction debris in the buffer zone of the lake (75 metres from the periphery), specifying an imposition of `5 lakh penalty on anyone found doing so. The 919-acre lake and its smaller Varthur twin are at the end of the lake series in the Koramangala Challaghatta valley and receive about 45% of the city's sewage. The government has been asked to invoke the `polluter pays' principle and get developers to bear the cost of diverting sewage away from the lake. There are 252 apartments in the vicinity which directly empty their sewage into the water body. In an earlier submission, Urban
figures differed from those submitted by other agencies and expressed disappointment on the "apathy of government officials for not having any exactitude of the sewage being treated or dumped� according to media sources. The latest development is that the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) has issued orders for closure of six industrial units situated around Bellandur Lake of the 97 units which are found to be releasing effluents in to the Lake. Many will also be closed soon.
- T Ramesh
Notices have been issued to 21 other units in the catchment areas of the Lake identified by the Board, including Bommanahalli, Hosur Road, Bannerughatta Road, Hongasandra and few in the South Bangalore region too. Barricades have been erected and night patrolling has brought the situation under control since a couple of days. Citizens have planned a movement too to protect other dying Lakes based on the NGT’s Order. The journey has begun, at last!