Demolition a farce as sewage enters lakes

BENGALURU: The drive to clear encroachments on storm water drains could end up being an exercise in futility as sewage, not rainwater, continues to flow into lakes. Worse, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board is two years away from fixing the problem.

The city generates an estimated 1,200 million litres of sewage per day , of which the water utility treats only 580 MLD. The untreated sewage and the treated sewage flow into lakes alike.

Ten new sewage treatment plants, with a combined capacity to treat 339 MLD, will be commissioned only in 2018. The BWSSB made this statement to the High Court, no less, in its fifth status report o n flow of sewage into storm water drains.

“Construction (of STPs) itself will take nearly two years. We've invited tenders now," said BWSSB additional chief engineer KR Manjunath, who is in charge of waste water management in the Koramangala and Challaghatta valleys. Ten more sewage treatment plants with a combined capacity to treat 575 MLD have been planned.



An approximate 206.92 MLD sewage is flowing into 45 lakes in the city, according to the BWSSB. This is because the utility is nowhere close to completing Environment Action Plans B and C to replace 144 km of trunk sewers to divert 270 MLD sew age to treatment plants. "We'll try to achieve plan B (replacing 70 km of trunk sewers) by end of December this year," Manjunath said.

About 35% of sewers run in storm water drains, according to a research paper commissioned by the Azim Premji University recently . As a result, the Allalasandra lake has 112 sewage connections discharging sewage into storm water drains.There are 207 connections and 12 laterals discharging sewage into the Ulsoor lake. The JP Park lake, Nagavara lake, Byrasandra lake, Deepanjalinagar lake, Kempambudhi lake and the Nayandahalli lake have active sewage connections, doc uments BWSSB submitted to the High Court show.

Civic authorities have so far demolished 141 homes to reclaim storm water drains. "You can't demolish properties to clear encroachments when you have sewage flowing in drains. It's not one or the other. You've to clear encroachments as well as free drains from sewage," said Jayna Kothari, the advocate representing the Citizens Action Group in a PIL on mixing of drains and sewage lines.

Geographer Chandra Shekhar Balachandra agreed: "Unless effluents and storm water go to the correct destination, no reclamation process will work."