Save Varthur Lake

Just opposite to my office we have a spectacular lake, which is the Bangalore's second largest one, the Varthur lake. Once happen to cross two bridges over two of its outlet and was completely shocked  to witness foams raising over the bridge from the lake outlets, even to the height of the bus crossing the bridge. the water flowing out beneath the bridge seemed to be very acidic. Only on googling  about the lake came to know the pathetic state of the lake. Read, few decades back this lake was source of fresh water for Varthur and surrounding village for drinking and farming, but today the whole ecosystem of the lake is completely disturbed by the flow of sewage into it. As this lake is in low level , its source is from down-links of many the lakes in Bangalore  which are already polluted by flow of sewage into them. 

So it seems more than 40% of Bangalore sewage water flows to it and cause of these foams, could be letting the toxic industrial effluents into the lake.  Currently the groundwater in this area has  high dosage of carcinogen (which causes cancer). The cause of this condition of this lake is due to lack of underground sewage network across the Bangalore, were mostly city’s sewage is let into these water-bodies. Wish government take care of issues caused by the rapid urbanization without any proper planning. Currently we need to spend 30 - 35 Rs for 20 lit of drinking water in Varthur, were few decades back it served the purpose  for free.   Farming is almost wiped out of this area due to this pollution.

Few decades back these lakes satisfied drinking water supply to the city, currently as they are polluted, Bangalore have started consuming fresh water from kaveri river and which is also not sufficient currently and this has also been a reason for kaveri river sharing issue between Karnataka and Tamilnadu. Previously many studies on the lake has been conducted highlighting the health hazards it could cause and submitted to respective government bodies, which has not improved situation. Wish people get organised and gets thing properly communicated to those government bodies to act on it.