Lokayukta calls for Active Public Action to save Lakes

Lokayukta calls for Active

Public Action to save Lakes

Justice Santosh Hegde attributed the problems facing Bangalore’s lakes to the negligent attitudes of short-sighted politicians and an unconcerned bureaucracy.

Hon'ble Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde called for Active Public Action to save Bangalore Lakes. He was speaking in the workshop on “Urban Lakes as Ecological, Cultural and Public Spaces”, Organised by Environment Support Group in collaboration with Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology at Dr. H. Marigowda Hall, Lalbagh, Bangalore on 26 September 2009.

In his Keynote address Justice Santosh Hegde Karnataka Lokayukta addressed the overall lake situation in Bangalore and then on more specific issues of governance that worsen conditions for lakes.

He spoke of the undulating topography of Bangalore, lending itself to the huge system of manmade lake chains that was in place until relatively recently. He went on to explain that building upon and encroaching on lakes leads to problems of flooding, since problems of overflow were previously handled by water flowing from the upper lakes of a lake series to those further down. He spoke of other problems facing lakes, such as pollution from sewage and heavy metal contamination.

Justice Hegde attributed the problems facing Bangalore’s lakes to the negligent attitudes of short-sighted politicians and an unconcerned bureaucracy. He claimed that faulty governance and overcrowding of the city beyond its infrastructural capacities were both to blame for the death of the city’s lakes.

The only hope he saw was in people organising themselves to question the absolute collapse of the governance systems and engaging with each and every public action, demanding transparency, exposing corruption and ensuring only that development would take place that truly benefits the people. He spoke with alarm that less than 15% of public expenditure truly meets public objectives and cited the recent CAG report which exposed that Rs. 51,000 crores of investment in programmes like NREGA were unaccounted.

In that sense Justice Hegde wondered if the the thousands of crores that the Government proposed to be invested in rehabiltating lakes should be perceived as benefiting the public to the extent of 15%?

Justice Hegde also answered many questions from the audience and encouraged people to intervene at the very inception of a problem and not to presume it is not their problem at all.

Speaking on “A Historical Anthropology of Tank Irrigation Technology in South India” Dr. Esha Shah of the University of Suxxex investigated the history of tanks in Karnataka, studying in particular the folklore and songs that grew up around tanks. She disputed the common assumption that in pre-colonial times tanks were collectively constructed and maintained by communities, attributing that assumption to a tendency to glorify and romanticise history.

Dr. Shah discussed the system through which tanks were constructed, where temples would provide resources (donated by the elite of the community) and lower caste communities provided labour, often under cruel coercion. She spoke of folk tales passed on through the communities which support the latter theory, in which their people were through various means tricked and cursed into poverty and tank building. She also spoke of the complex mythology that would grow up around tanks, with songs and shrines created for women who were periodically sacrificed to make a tank provide water during droughts.

She also spoke of how tanks were not initially built with a view towards environmental sustainability. Of the over 35,000 tanks in Karnataka, merely 300 were built during the British period and most of the rest during the reign of the Vijayanagar Empire. The basic objective was to expand agricultur, particularly paddy cultivation, to places with water scarcity.

She concluded by saying that history does not hold the key to the problems of the present. Our history did not have the democratic structure of present day society, and thus its often brutal solutions to problems could not be replicated in society today. She said that we need alternative ways to imagine the future keeping well our memories from the past as a reminder of what to avoid.

Dr. S. Subramanya of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dr. D. S. Ravindran, IFS, Sunil Dutt Yadav, A. R. Shivakumar, Executive Secretary of the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology, A. T. Ramaswamy, formerly Chairman of the Joint Karnataka Legislature Committee on Encroachment of Public Lands in the Bangalore area, Leo Saldanha of the Environment Support Group, Ms. Bhargavi S. Rao, Trustee and Coordinator (Education) of Environment Support welcomed the audience and also thanked them for all their excellent participation and cooperation. also spoke. Ms. Bhargavi S. Rao, Trustee and Coordinator (Education) of Environment Support welcomed the audience and also thanked them for all their excellent participation and cooperation.

For detailed report of deliberations of the workshop by Anjali Vaidya, click the link to image above.

-Nethrakere Udaya Shankara