Bengaluru lakes continue to suffer from construction waste dumping

BENGALURU: Government lands, lakes and farms on the outskirts of the city is becoming dump yards. Sandeep Anirudhan, a conservation activist from Whitefield, recently caught a truck dumping construction waste into the Pattandur Agrahara lake. Sandeep said that these activities have been going on for several months. The lake is not fenced, therefore, due to unguarded access, several trucks come and dump construction debris into the lake bed in broad daylight.

Similar issues have plagued lakes in Sarjapur. Last year, in November, residents staged protests to save the Doddakere lake from reckless sand extraction and dumping of construction waste,.

Residents around the Sompura lake, have also started complaining that the construction waste is being dumped in the lake bed.

Sarfaraz Khan, joint commissioner, SWM, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), conceded that the menace was still prevalent though the civic body had been penalising those dumping construction waste in lakebeds and drains with hefty fines going up to ₹10,000 in some cases.

The BBMP is also planning to formalise the sector through empaneled vendors like for bulk generators of waste in the city. It has awarded work order to a private firm to put up a C&D waste processing plant in an abandoned quarry at Kannur in north Bengaluru with a capacity to process 2,000 tons per day of C&D waste. The plant is expected to come up in next three months.