Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley, is home to gleaming corporate headquarters and a large middle class with a modern way of life. The city, which has experienced unbridled urban growth, has grown from 700,000 inhabitants in the 1950s to 13 million today. However, unlike many mega-cities, Bangalore is not crossed by a river and is located very far from the sea.
This city, once famous for its pretty lakes, has therefore not been able to deploy the necessary infrastructure to regenerate its waters. The result is that certain bodies of water sometimes catch fire because they are so contaminated, as in Lake Bellandur.
That isn’t a nuclear mushroom. It’s namma #BellandurLake when it went up in flames. Capture: @raahul_raahul pic.twitter.com/E7WBW7PEoI
– Kiron Sahadevan (@sgkiron) January 19, 2018
“Look at all that garbage on the surface of the water… There’s even a dead dog!, describes environmental activist Elangovan Kulandaivelu. This lake is located in one of the valleys of Bangalore where 40% of the city’s water flows, whether it is sewage or rainwater. What you see is the rubbish thrown by the population on the roads. But another problem is that sewers are flowing into the lake. There are also industrialists who pollute illegally. That’s why the water is so black. ”
This pollution has severe consequences for the poorest inhabitants who indirectly consume water, in particular an explosion of kidney failure. Together with other citizens, Elangovan therefore founded a group for the regeneration of the lakes of Bangalore.
Many citizens and scientists have carried out pollution measurements and lodged a complaint with national bodies. Result, the national ecological court condemned in 2018 the city of Bangalore for its laxity. It must now tackle sewer leaks in the lakes or face a fine, but the task is immense. Of the 1.3 billion liters consumed each day by the city, only 900 million are currently treated.
The action of the Elangovan group also led to the enactment of phosphate limits in detergents for all of India. But the most impressive project was initiated by the architect Naresh Venkatraman in collaboration with the municipality: to thoroughly clean the largest canal in Bangalore, over 10 kilometers, to make it a walking space for all the inhabitants. “Here there were millions of gallons of sewage and tons of rubbish. But after seeing the canals of cities like Paris, I wanted a comparable public space for Bangalore., explains Naresh Venkatraman.
“We want to turn this black river into a green asset.”
Naresh Venkatraman, architectto franceinfo
“It’s trying to work with all government agencies. But I think this project will become a success,” declares the architect optimistically.
After a year of work, the quality of the water has already improved. But it will still be necessary to fill the leaks of a hundred sewers so that the inhabitants of the big city of the South can walk at the edge of clean water.