Errakunta lake of Nacharam oozes on all its sides like a gigantic spider. Water from the lake gushes forth onto the road, which, strangely enough, is at level with the maximum water spread area.
To the first time visitor, it would look as if the lake has breached its bund. However, one would be surprised to know there is no bund for the lake for quite some time. There is no trace of bund even in the HMDA maps from 2014.
“Flooding is a perennial problem, surfacing every monsoon. To address it, we have got this drain constructed recently,” says Saizen Shekhar, a local leader and husband of corporator Shanti Saizen Shekhar.
The drain, poorly constructed without any scientific basis, could not stop the lake from occupying the road from all sides, which is blamed on GHMC not clearing silt and weed. Water dangerously poured over a wall preceding the drain, the purpose of which nobody could guess and which only served as an obstruction.
Another age old drain with six pipelines emptied the lake from where the weir lay, but clearly the volume of water far surpassed the drain’s carrying capacity as vouched by the overflowing streets.
“The lake was fine during our childhood. I remember it flooding only once, perhaps in the late 90s. The existing drain was enough to clear off the surplus water. There was a bund too. Due to the lake, there was abundant ground water for us,” recalls Mohd. Tasleem, an erstwhile resident of the area.
His family had to shift to Raghavendra Nagar due to constant flooding for the last four to five years, which he attributes to encroachments. Indeed, fresh encroachments since the lake was notified in 2014 could be seen from a side.
Truckloads of earth and debris were dumped into the lake, starting from the compound wall of a graveyard, which jutted into the lake’s buffer zone as demarcated in the HMDA maps. Not compound wall alone, but residential buildings, road and religious structures came up in what was demarcated as the buffer zone.
“The lake’s natural weir is on the side of the old drain, where encroachment is rampant. Authorities should develop the old drain rather than experimenting,” Mr. Tasleem says.
Despite several complaints, Irrigation officials have not taken any action against the encroachment, he said.