Mysuru: After visiting Kukkarahalli Lake, the Karnataka Lake Conservation and Development Authority appointed experts retired professor Ramprasad and retired chief engineer C N Babu who held an hour long discussion with the officials, environmentalists and activists at the site and collected their feedback. During the feedback session, the experts came to know that the people want fresh water to be released to the lake and instead of present system of disilting they wanted a scientific way of doing it. The experts will be submitting their reports in 15 days’ time.
During the hour long discussion attended by nearly 35 people including Major General Vombatkere and a school going girl, the majority of the participants called upon the experts to take up disilting in a scientific manner opposing the present approach. Almost all of them called upon the experts to completely stop concretisation, drop the proposed butterfly park, aquarium, adventure park and bamboo park.
M M Shenoy, one among the persons who gave his feedback to the experts said, “In Rajasthan, due to lack of scientific approach in disilting of Pushkar lake, the water body perished. Hence keeping that in mind, before taking up disilting of Kukkarahalli Lake, they should know what should be done, how it should be done and where it should be done. Scientific decision should be taken to safeguard the lake. Steps should be taken to make a eco-friendly and environment friendly lake”.
M K Sapthagirish, who has taken up research on Kukkarahalli lake and has come all the way from Bengaluru for the discussion said, “This is one of the unique wetlands we have in the heart of any urban landscape and this probably is the only tank in the state which has such a huge bio- diversity in the middle of a city. Any development activity from human perspective is going to have a catastrophic effect on this huge diversity of species and can threaten their very existence. The tank hosts some of the rare birds like the Spot-billed pelican, darter, painted stork and oriental white ibis which are migratory birds and breed in the tank. The tank for its high density and diversity of bird species is recognised as one of the important bird and biodiversity area by Birdlife International, an international bird conservation society. Our prime concern is to develop and protect Kukkarahalli lake from ecological point of view and save it from becoming another tourist hub and lose the invaluable natural treasure. Kukkarahalli is a natural laboratory handed over to the University of Mysore to conserve and preserve it in its natural condition and use it for research purposes of the students. However, why this has to be developed into another commercial tank is not understood and our concern is to protect this natural laboratory for the future generations to come. A total of 186 species of birds, 14 species of mammals, 20 species of reptiles, 7 species of amphibians, 86 species of butterfly, 37 species of spiders and more than 350 species of trees and plants have been recorded in Kukkarahalli tank.”
Vombatakere while expressing his views said UoM which is the custodian of the lake, in the name of disilting was excavating the lake and extracting water from the lake.
Opposing these opinions, Appaji Gowda and Harsha requested the experts to go for desilting citing that it would improve water storage in the lake. Rajkumar also mentioned that if lake had to be alive, disilting should be undertaken.
Due to difference of opinions among the common public and environmentalists, Deputy Commissioner D Randeep requested help from experts. As per his request, two experts Ramprasad and Babu took opinion from people who are against the ongoing disilting and also those in its favour. During the discussion, many came out with various suggestions and ideas and some even asked for blue print of the project before further implementation. Some of them also opposed promoting Kukkarahalli Lake for tourists and called upon the experts to immediately suspend such ideas.
Earlier, after the experts visited Deputy Commissioner’s Office, D Randeep briefed the experts about what they are looking from the experts. “We want to preserve this lake for more than 200 to 300 years and hence we want your valuable suggestions that are required to preserve and conserve the lake which was built in the year 1850”.
University of Mysuru Psychology Professor Meva Singh, Botany Department Professor Prof. G R Janardhan, Lake Advisory Committee Convenor K N Jayaramiah, member U N Ravikumar and executive engineer of University of Mysore technical division accompanied the experts during inspection of the lake.
Expert talk:
“The feedback from the public is they want fresh water to be released in Kukkarahalli lake and it should not be concretised. We will have a discussion on all the views and submit the report to CEO of Lake Development Authority (LDA) in 15 days’ time”, added Ramprasad.
