How can we protect and preserve our lakes? Who should protect and preserve our lakes? And is the “development” and privatisation of the restoration and maintenance of lakes in the guise of “public-private partnership” the solution?
These are obviously important questions at a time when public spaces are vanishing and the “State” is being quickly reduced to a real estate broker, taking land from here and giving it to private parties there.
And those questions are staring us in the face as the Lake Development Authority (LDA) in its infinite wisdom has awarded a contract to East India Hotels, the parent body of the Oberoi Group, to restore and develop the five-century old Hebbal Lake in Bangalore that has sustained farmers, fishing communities, cattle herders, washermen, casual workers, not to speak of tourists and sight seers.
For just Rs 72 lakh a year, the 150-acre water body—that’s roughly 6,750,000 square feet—will now be at the disposal of the Oberois, who will build a cafeteria, a floating restaurant, a children’s park, a handicrafts and gifts centre, a statue, and a medical centre. The lake will be fenced, and entry will be charged at Rs 20 per head.
All this in the name of saving the lake.
Is this the best way of saving Hebbal Lake or is a prime piece of public property being gobbled up in front of our lives? Is building monstrosities in a city of monstrosities the way forward? Is restricting entry by pricing admission the way to save the lake? Will the Oberois save the lake or kill it?
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Students of the Mallya Aditi International School, Bangalore are taking lead and organizing a candle light vigil on Saturday, August 4, 2007 at 6:30 p.m to save the Hebbal Lake. All you need to bring is candles and sense of care to save the lake.
Privatisation is not the answer. When Govt can manage and run such wonderful parks, I think it can as well maintain lakes itself in Bangalore.
Its need not be handed over to private parties. Why is Oberoi taking Hebbal lake? The reason is obvious. Why cant it take Yediyur lake or Puttenahalli lake?
CM recently had made an announcement that all the lakes will be brought into the purview of BBMP from the Lake Development Authority. This is possibly a different move to dissolve LDA.
We have heard so much of this dastardly Public Private Partnership for the last ten years. All the time it has meant the public making way for the public especially when it comes to allocation of land. One of these days hopefully there will be something that the private does for the public besides gobbling up what is rightfully ours but what is being gifted on a platter by slimeball politicians carrying out the mandate of the world bank and the IMF and ADB.
I am not saying that Oberoi building a floating cafe etc etc and charging Rs.20 entrance is the ONLY way to save the lake but WHY on earth do you people trust the govt to preserve it for you? I am not happy about this public-private partnership either – it basically means – the private sector greases the govt’s hands and in return the givt gives access to such facilities to the private sector. I think the govt ought to divest any interest in “preserving” lakes through any farcial bodies like the LDA and privatise all off them (lakes). The terms of such a divestment are to be made public well before hand and pass through public opinion with maybe some sort of a scheme to record challenges made to specific clauses. Once this is finalized it should be turned over.
Govt, to me, is just a body of people who are easily susceptible to special interest groups (including themselves) spending someone else’s (ours) money.
Let the governement do governance first
let them not poke their nose into issues like tourism etc…
there is lobby which cries foul at any privatization…very same lobby consisting of “reservation seeking non tax paying” dumbos, who are good for nothing, only interested in government jobs and not working…
The lakes must be preserved. The government has so far shown that it is unable to do that. I would much rather pay Rs.20 to enjoy the lake than stand and bask for free in the fetid cesspool it is bound to become if the government was responsible for its upkeep. At the end of the day, our government babus are not so dumb as to give up their powers. If they want to, they’ll take the lake back from Oberoi or anybody else.
G3S, RVG,
There is more to preservation than beautification. The question here is of preservation of an ecosystem and preservation of a public space. As planned whatever EIH is doing is threatening both of them. For one, they drained the tank in the middle of a breeding season. If tommorrow, a bird builds a nest on their hotel structure, what do you think is going to happen? What prevents them from introducing polluting motor boats in to the water? (apart from sound, the motorboat engines are notorious for leaking oil, especially those scooter types). What is going to happen to the snakes, rats or whateever in the lake area?
I see it as a sell out of an ecosystem. EIH is going to change the ecosystem there to suit there activities. They are not going to adjust their activities to the ecosystem there. That is the problem.
TS, that would have happened even if the govt. took care of it. I remember what they did to Halasoor lake in their effort to “clean it up”.
And I don’t think there is an ecosystem at Hebbal lake as of now. From what I have seen it is going the way of Vrishabhavati. Not much of an ecosystem to save there.
Tarlesubba & Co
please note that, the new trend in tourism is eco tourism…and ecotels…
and there are enough “watchdog” NGO`s to bark in case of pollution during development- as they know that, the developer would throw some pieces of bread! (eventhough they would be unconcerned with present state of affairs!!!)
and you should go to Mangalore to see “government style” of tourism…on the beach, some stupid tourism officer has made a lawn and fenced it too- this is the government estyle of Tourism!
1. Govt. is not making any money out of any lake now.
2. BMP or LDA has to spend tax payers money on up keep every year otherwise.
3. Just a few years ago thro’ Norway (r some other country) aid lakhs was spent on Hebbal Lake, but since then it is back to square one.
4. Mots of the lakes are used by Trucks to unload debris etc with impunity.
5. In Bangalore there are few private agencies who remove night soil from some areas where BWSSC does not provide service and unload it in these lakes on the sly in the night.
6. Because of no surface activity like boating etc lakes are active breeding centers of Mosquitoes.
7. As effluents are let out to most lakes, water hycinth and other weeds flourish in these water.
May be there are many more such reasons.
So as long as Public has access to these lakes albeit at some cost one need not be critical of Private corporates moving in to save the lakes.
TS send me your contact number
Who says government has not done anything for the lakes? It has silently allowed builders to encroach the lakes!
(so real estate lobby maybe behind the protest against priviatization of lakes???)
Students of the Mallya Aditi Inter-national School? How ironical!
I didnt even know that there existed a “Lake Development Authority (LDA)”, ummmm must pay less tax.
I’d much rather have private citizens or companies owning lakes instead of the Government. That’s partly because of the fact that I can afford the Rs.20-30 they will charge as entrance fee. I see nothing unethical about the fee.
With a private body. there’s a likelihood that they might convert the lake into an apartment or complex. Guard clauses can be put in the contract regarding the ecosystem. It’s always a hard choice b/w economy and environment :-(
Under Govt., we’ll mostly see Vrishabhavati type situations. It’s easy to imagine that BBMP or the bureaucrats working in “Lake Development Authority” have no incentive to innovate.
The real issue is not lakes, but urban land usage. We’ve run into extreme artificial scarcity of urban land, and that’s why terms like “land grabbers”, “real state sharks” crop up regularly. With better rules, the demand-supply gap can be comfortably bridged without affecting the environment.
exactly G3S, it should not reduce to the levels of halasoor. hebbal is home to a lot of water birds. (somewhere around 30 species i believe)
JR, perhaps synchronized fountains so as to disturb films, paddle boats, enhancement of tertiary treatment plant at Hebbal are a solution? (NURM funds) . The lake has existed for 500 years. there is no design flaw in the lake itself. the problems crop up because we started tampering with it. so the solution is to reduce the the problems that we are creating.
whoever built the lake had the vision to build it in a valley. infact the entire valley has many lakes. 500 years later will all the science behind us, instead of integrating the valley, all we have done is chop the valley up in parcels, all because the “govt cant do it”.
Well the govt has to do it. valleys have to managed in their entirety and not piecemeal. Only a public body can do that. Why are we subsidizing UAS, IISc etc if they cannot contribute to solving real and current problems? Even small volunteer citizen groups have enrolled Profs from these institutions to analyze problems and suggest solutions. Why can’t the govt can’t do it?
Whatever EIH has done so far does not betray any eco sensitivity. They have not listed any of their activities on the lake as non-profit. From what I see, it is an out and out business proposition. Apart from charging entry fees, they will run businesses in what was once a public space. There are no free public areas. In a sense this is a mall/shopping complex in a public space even if peddled under the garb of eco tourism.
http://www.esgindia.org/aboutus/aboutus.html
The above is a link to the Environment Support Group which does a lot of good work in this space of environment conservation. Those of you who are genuinely interested in making a difference can volunteer your efforts here. An affiliated group is ‘Hasiru Usiru’ which actively works towards conserving the tree cover in Bangalore.
All green NGO`s are only into money making…
you pay them their price, they will fight for or against any issue!
Mr RVG Know-it-all,
You seem to be experienced in doing such things! (or maybe that is the reason you give yourself for not DOING anything for a good cause)
Why do members on this forum HAVE to be negative/cynical about everything?
This is the most disastrous thing to have happend. EIH is spending Rs.16 crs on this, and why the hell would they let public in. LDA is an impotent body and for them PPP is letting out Public Property to Private investors. If people refer this to eco-tourism, GOD save our eco system. LDA also gifted another lake, viz., Nagavara Lake to Lumbini Gardens, where motor boats, wedding receptions, et al have ruined the eco-system of the lake. There are some people and NGOs fighting to save Hebbal Lake. Hope they succeed, else, one day, not too far, Chamundi Hills, River Cauvery, Nagarhole will be leased out on PPPs…
Privatisation is certainly not the ONLY way…but hey, if it works, it works. Privatisation certainly is ‘A’ way, so let’s go for it….simple?
DS.
if they had first drawn up some plans and then handed over execution to private players and said you have to do this you can do this but not this. then it is different. here the attitude is – i cannot do it, here, take this and run with, do whatever you want.
wow thanks for the adjectives showered!
(Smita Says: August 2nd, 2007 at 10:24 pm Mr RVG Know-it-all,)
i speak from my observations on NGO`s
1. chinese sponsored NGO in my native district, delaying the power project-without power- our industries would die…chinese industry benefits!
2. foreign steel giants through guruvayanakere trust, got the Kudremukh project stalled, but the same NGO is not bothered about tonnes an tonnes of iron ore/ manganese ore being exported to China, through mangalore port! (one website from Netherland OXFAM claims that this NGO is thier lobbyist in India- what does that mean?)
3. In a recent development, the NGO of guruvayanakere did not even hesitate to join hands with naxals for money!
4. NGO child relief and you – CRY spends 48% of budget for its own mintenance…like luxurious cars for executives, swank offices etc, all in the name of child relief…(all the donors to CRY should be aware of this!)
5. NGO roshini nilaya (sponsored by some foreign missionery funded by cigarette industry of America) successfully painted our beedi industry bad, and got the beedis banned in the US!!! (i am not saying beedis are good or bad, but US still imports beedis from other countries)
dear Smitha…please show me some POSITIVE actions by NGO`s…i mean other than protest/ stalling a project/ lobbying
NGOs for the most part are an utter farce. In a country where everyone aspires to move up, earn more, spend more, and enjoy the pleasures of life these wretched killjoys dressed in faded kurtas, swinging jholas, smoking beedis, can only come up with inane solutions, all of which involve distributing poverty. But as RV Gowda rightly puts it they spend xtra-ordinary portions of their funds on administrative expenses. Yet not one of them has set up a single institution of value. Handing over a lake on a long term lease to the private sector is not a solution for all places and all times. But in India where the state is utterly incompetent, because its employees are unaccountable to the public and hence have no interest in doing their job, a place like Hebbal will become a gigantic cesspool with all the pressure on Bangalore’s infrastructure. Better to hand it over to a private developer who will regulate admission and throw out anybody who dares trespass and dump garbage in it. In Bombay at Nariman Point the Oberoi Towers used to maintain a public convenience across the main portico, which in those days (possibly even now) is the only decent convenience in that area. The place used to open to the public without any problem ever, in the interests of public decency. When Rai Bahadur Oberoi was asked by his shareholders if he wasn’t wasting their money providing a convenience for the public, the old man is reputed to have shot back that he would rather have the public easing themselves in luxury inside the hotel than easing themselves on the footpath across the road. The latter would not simply make the Oberoi an unattrative place but would affect India’s image as a whole, and that would damage the company more than anything else!
Raviraj Gowda,
You are on the money regards Kudremukh. The sons of bitches killed the livelihoods of so many middle and lower middle class people.
The issue of NGOs in India is a very important one. Most of them are little more than fronts for foreign companies and intelligence agencies.
Whilst not collecting the moolah from their masters overseas, they are busy stalling every development project in India ( from power to the culling of dogs!!). There has to be a way to regulate the flow of money to these organizations. If India wants to get out of the stone ages, the first thing it has to do is to severely curtail the activites of these mercenaries.
How about filing a PIL against this PPP of Hebbal lake, saying that it will harm the eco-system? Any gauidence is welcome.
I would like to know from Aruna Urs. What is so ironical about students of Mallya Aditi taking a lead. I would like to know a bit of the history behind this exclamation.
This is not the time for us to worrying about NGOs and their role. This is a serious issue. It is about birds, it is about all organisms that are dependant on birds, it is about one of the larger watersheds of the zone, it is also about the process and model of development that we are accepting, without understanding the consequences of the same.
The agreement between LDA and Oberois spells doom for this wonderful bird habitat. Activities such as two jetties, aqua bridge, water scooters, electric boats, toilet blocks, gift and curios shops, lake view restaurant, floating restaurant will only deter resident and migrant bird population. Its also about many fisher people who have been using these waters for their sustenance. Its also about raising our voices to protect probably the only natural habitats of this region.
TS,
And I still don’t see any issue with that. Ultimately the goal is to solve the ‘problem’, isn’t it?
RVG, Melange and Kangeya
All great posts! I knew these NGOs were “No Good Obstructionists” but never did I imagine them to be so well organized and well funded by the enemies of India! That was an eye opener and thank you for sharing this nugget.
Dear DB…
more disturbing info on NGOs in India:
1. NGO: Kudremukh
http://sdnp.nic.in/thematicareas/biodiv/subresources/kudremukh-impasse.html
2. NGO and foreign funds:
http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/research/development/dev_1998_12_01.html
3. NGO- Naxal links exposed:intelligence report!
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/3_31.htm
4. NGO- Corrupt media exposure:
http://udupipressvictim.wordpress.com/2007/01/13/real-story-behind-protests-against-nagarjuna-power-project-padubidri-udupihow-dubai-based-gas-mafiacorrupt-mediaforeign-fund-rich-guruvaayanakere-nayak-mafiafake-environmental-groupspoliticianso/
Privatization is probably the way to go. At least once the lake is ‘owned’ by someone and generates revenue, it will be protected. Otherwise it will eventually be taken over by land sharks or slums.
Take the case of Kaggadasapura lake in C V Raman Nagar. It was a set of lakes. Large number of birds of different kinds used to visit the lake all parts of the year. The fish in the lake was plenty too. Now large parts of the lake has been land-filled and there is an IT park with several companies. What remains of the lake is being converted into a sewage body by the construction workers of the IT park (which seems to be all-encroaching). All the wonderful birds which used to come to the lake arent there anymore. It is being killed off rather quickly. There is probably no fish in the dirty water too. And this all under the ‘watchful’ eyes of the government.
Maybe the lake would have a better chance if it were in private hands?
I meant the Byrasandra Lake. But I guess the same case with Kaggadasapura lake – on in this case it has been private builders instead of an relative of an ex-CM who provides IT infrastructure. Same story just different encroachers.
DS,
The whole problem is with the LDA. They are on a PPP frenzy. The Agara Lake is next in the line. The funds are no problems. Even letting out very small corner (on the bund and nowhere near the water) to the investor may not be a bad idea. But certainly not letting these commercial establishments decide what they want to do, especially motor boats, banquets. I have not seen how the waste disposal is happening at Nagavaara (Lumbini), but with confidence I can say that 99 out of the 100 visitors would not mind throwing the cans or tetrapacks into the water.
With NURM funds, LDA could have handled it themselves as there not too many lakes left. We should be worried about their protection, the protection of habitats, rather than turning them into commerical spots.
anonymus Guy :
correct Our Ex- CM – who wanted to convert Bangalore into S’pore. took away ALL the lakes .
The Sharks are swallowing the land in and around Bangalore with insatiable hunger till now, it seems they are ready to drink water bodies too. The concept of preserving the lake is very attractive but reserving it for private partnership with out proper planning and signing on the dotted line is disgusting and disastrous. Eco tourism should not be allowed to become the source of economic and environmental exploitation. The agreement should incorporate a provision for withdrawal of the permission if conditions laid down to protect the ecology are flouted. Mere good intentions are not enough, strong will to implement them is most important. It is the duty of all the nature lovers to study the proposal in detail and oppose it in all the available forum.
Posted by: Neocon Savior | November 18, 2005 at 12:50 PM (Bakersfield.com) Editorials
News Press Release: New Idea, Fixing The Levees
Everyone is looking for a solution to the levee problem, land restoration problem and the barrier islands problem. I believe they just want to talk about the problem and continue receiving a paycheck. The reason for my belief is very simple. The Lord has provided solutions for all of the above. I know it comes from the Lord because it is very simple. A Box. No need to come up with a design. No need to do a study. No need to wait years for protection. No need to spend a lot of money. It has been protected and cannot be bought off with scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back deal. This invention can be in place before the next hurricane season. This invention has been given to you and was made public in Nov. 2005. And yet not a single person has even attempted to build even a small-scale model to see how many benefits this invention has to offer. This is not about money to build a category 5-levee protection system. You already have one. With this invention, you are dealing only with one person. How simple can that be? Congress is waiting on a solution from the very same people who cannot come up with a solution for the past 50 years. These same people Congress is waiting on knows about this invention. And yet will not even mention it to Congress. I find that selfish and self-centered and only concerned about themselves. Congress is ready to fund the solution. But the difference is that 80% of the money funded will go directly to material for building and installation of my invention for levees, barriers and land restoration as mentioned above. One design used for all of the above. Not different designs for each. And that is the problem I believe. Most of the money funded does not go directly to the actual material and installation of levees, barriers and land restoration built for protection. This invention will save peoples lives, property and restore land that was eroded by water surge and erosion. But the United States of America has turned a deaf ear and a blind eye for there own personal gain. The solution has been given to them ready to be built and save peoples lives. But they are more concerned about who comes up with the solution, rather than where it came from. This is a sad day in America.
There was a news press release of the invention on national TV. So the United States of America is without excuse of not knowing about the solution ready to be built to save peoples lives. When will the talking stop and action begin to be the priority? When will saving peoples lives come first rather than money, power and position.
Click on the website below to view for yourself the News Press Release
that was seen in 2006.
“http://www.youtube.com/v/lKyxdMHBZ8E”
Click on the website below to view Jim Boudreaux’s invention in details.
http://jboudreaux.page.tl/