Mathikere Lake, once a beautiful water body today stands marred by excessive influx of sewage which is being released into the lake.
For old timers, Mathikere Lake is now a painful memory.
While recalling the lake of yore, they turn nostalgic. Words become too weak to convey the beauty the water body once provided. It was the pride of Mathikere then.
Senior citizen Ranganath Shetty of nearby Malleswaram travelled down the memory lane to the 1960s, the days of youthful exuberance. He had then jostled to find a window seat on the left-hand side of the train compartment, to take in the beauty of the lake.
“There used to be a train service from Yeshwantpur to Chikkaballapur in the 1960s. I used to travel regularly on that train. I used to always take the left window seat, just to enjoy the scenic beauty of the Mathikere Lake, which used to be in the offer for more than a kilometre right from the beginning of the Yeshwantpur station,” he said.
Shetty, today, is doubtful if he would take the seat on the left. “All I can see now is a small, polluted pond spread about 80 acres,” he added.
Like Shetty and his wife, thousands of old timers in and around Mathikere have several fond memories of the lake, which authorities call as the JP Park Lake. “Even the park here is built on the area reclaimed from the lake. Even though it is good that this beautification has stopped encroachments to some extent, it is sad such a huge lake has been reduced to a pond,” Vishwanath Gowda, a resident of Mathikere, lamented.
It is not just the reduction in the lake’s spread that is worrying them. Rajesh K, another resident, said there has been an influx of sewage into the lake, thanks to the laying of sewage lines being carried out in Yeshwantpur.
“Earlier, the dimension of the lake area was close to 125 acres. Now it has been reduced to over 80 acres,” he said.
Gowda recolled a tragic incident in March 2011. Thousands of fish succumbed to pollutants in the Mathikere Lake.
“The cause of their death was due to the diversion of sewage from Yeshwantpur. The BBMP and BWSSB have to be blamed for negligence,” an indignant Gowda said.
When contacted over the problems in the lake, the BBMP officials said that desilting work in the lake is going on right now and they are trying to bring back the lost legacy of the lake.
“However, due to lack of inflow thanks to the encroachments, the big lake is segregated into five ponds and some of them have dried up,” said an official.
When asked about the recent fish death, the BBMP officials said the presence of weeds and algae hastened the depletion of dissolved oxygen and increased carbon dioxide levels in the water.
(With additional inputs from Akshay Prasad and Jonathan Job)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}