Residents have come together to fight for the Doddanekundi lake, which gets sewage from nearby localities, and whose buffer zone is being eyed by land sharks.
The Doddanekundi Lake Welfare Association plans to pressure civic bodies to ensure sewage is diverted away from the waterbody and check encroachment on the buffer zone. It also wrote to Doddanekundi corporator, Shwetha H R, last week, seeking support for rejuvenating the lake.
In 2015, the BBMP undertook a Rs 10-crore project for the rejuvenation of the lake that falls in two wards: Mahadevapura and Vignana Nagar. Works included dredging, building bunds and fencing the lake area to prevent encroachment, but the problem of sewage remained.
"We will conduct clean-up drives every Sunday in the coming weeks. We are planning to de-weed the lake by looking into options like bringing in vendors to do it. We will repair the park along the lake bund and prepare places for community meetings without harming the natural vegetation," said Madhulika Kumar, a resident of Gururaja Layout in Doddanekundi.
Residents said the money allocated for treating sewage or diverting it away from the lake had not been spent. "We have also asked the corporator to install STPs at three inlets of the lake or at least divert the sewage away from the lake. But they say the BBMP has not released funds for the same," she added.
An activist said a 75-metre area around the lake, which should be developed as a green belt as per the National Green Tribunal rules, had been encroached upon by private properties. "They have also cut down some trees," said the resident of Vignana Nagar.
The corporator said: "We requested the BDA several times to install a sewage treatment plant or at least divert the sewage away from the lake, but nothing has happened. Even streetlights have not been installed in the walking stretch. The park along the lake bund needs to be improved, too."
The corporator has promised complete support for residents' efforts to build a sewage treatment plant on their own.