Meet Anand Malligavad, The Engineer Rejuvenating Bengaluru's 'Dead' Lakes One By One

There was a time when Bengaluru was called the city of lakes, as the Karnataka capital had close to a thousand lakes.

Unlike many big cities, Bengaluru doesn't have any major rivers, and these lakes which were created in the 16th century played a key role in shaping the city as it is known today.

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But due to rapid urbanization in the past few decades, Bengaluru lost most of these water bodies to infrastructure projects and encroachment.

From 1000 to 80

In 1960, there were around 280 lakes in Bengaluru, but today their number has fallen to just around eighty, out of which just around two dozen can be called healthy.

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The mindless push for development has resulted in many of them being drained, leveled, and used for other purposes. Many others have become dumping grounds for the city's industrial and domestic waste.

The death of Bengaluru's lakes has started showing its effects already. The water table in Bengaluru has gone down dangerously to the point where it was listed as one of the cities that will run out of groundwater.

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In recent years, flooding has also become common in Bengaluru as the rain waters have nowhere to go as the natural course has been clogged with construction.

It is this realisation that transformed a mechanical engineer from North Karnataka to become the saviour of Bengaluru's lakes.

Anand Malligavad, a mechanical engineer by qualification has been living in Bengaluru since 1996, when the city, according to him had a lot more lakes and water than now.

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How it started

In 2016, while working with Sansera Engineering, Malligavad like many in Bengaluru learned that their city will soon run out of water.

"I started studying more about the lakes of Bengaluru and how we reached this point. I learned that at one point Bengaluru had close to 1000 lakes and many of them have been destroyed. I also came across the fact that several key infrastructure projects in Bengaluru including the Majestic Bus Stand, the hockey stadium, etc are built on land that was once a lake," Malligavad told Indiatimes.

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Initially, he tried to create awareness among the public about the importance of the city's lakes, but he couldn't make much of an impact.

"So I decided I will work on the root cause, which in Bengaluru's case is the lakes. In the next few months, I studied extensively about the lakes including their structure, shape, soil condition, topography, ecosystem, how lakes are inter-connected, etc. I visited nearly 180 lakes in one year for this," he said.

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36-acre lake cleared in 45 days

After nearly six months of research, Malligavad started working on reviving the Kyalasanahalli Lake near Anekal, a 36-acre water body that was on the verge of death due to neglect and encroachment.

"I had a budget of Rs 1 crore which was the CSR fund of Sansera Engineering. I had to do whatever needed to be done within the budget. Keeping this in mind I did the calculations and found where we can reduce the costs. We used mostly natural materials, clay, and gravel from the lake itself to create bunds and separations. We started in April 2017, and completed the project in just 45 days spending Rs 95 lakhs," Malligavad said.

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On June 5, 2017, on the occasion of World Environment Day, Malligavad along with several other techies also planted thousands of saplings around the waterbody, which have now grown into a forest.

According to Malligavad, one of the biggest challenges that he had faced in the rejuvenation drive was resistance from the encroachers. Since the lake had been neglected for decades and partly dried up, nearly one-third of it - 12 acres were encroached upon.

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"After identifying we marked the original boundaries of the lake, but the villagers who were living on the land removed it, we had to do it all over again. Then we got some villagers who wanted the lake to be rejuvenated onboard. With their support, the encroachers were convinced to move out," he said.

Even now, the villagers who are the beneficiaries of the lake play a key role in the upkeep of the waterbody.

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In the following days with the support of HP, Malligavad rejuvenated another lake after his company allowed him to work on it along with his official duties. Malligavad rejuvenated three more lakes in 2019 after which he quit his job to dedicate entirely to the cause.

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Mission 2025

The 39-year-old has so far rejuvenated 11 lakes and is currently working three more, apart from four others he helped to revive. He has set a goal of rejuvenating 45 lakes across Bengaluru by 2025.

He said that lake rejuvenation doesn't merely limit to the waterbody, but the entire ecosystem.

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"All the lakes I have worked on so far were designed based on the topography and local conditions. We have also planted four different types of forests - Miyawaki, traditional forest, grassland or wetland depending on the local needs. All the saplings planted are local species. We also replenished the lakes with the original fish species in them," he said.

Things change for good

According to Malligavad, the positive change brought by the rejuvenated lakes to the localities and the people there are clearly visible.

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"Soon after we rejuvenated the Kyalasanahalli Lake, it was filled by the monsoons that followed. It has never dried up since. As the lake became healthy so did the underground water in the area. Despite having several borewells the village was struggling to supply water for the residents. But after the groundwater level improved, the borewells have been recharged and they now have excess water. With the 18 lakes rejuvenated lakes, we have recharged at least 800 borewells so far. This also had a positive impact on the local agriculture," he said.

Malligavad also claimed that during the recent heavy rains in Bengaluru, none of the areas where the lakes were rejuvenated had experienced floods.

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"In November, we had very heavy rains in which many parts of Bengaluru were flooded. But since we had created these massive water holding tanks, those places did not experience any flooding," he said.

Talking about the infamous Bellandur and Varathur lakes, which often make headlines for catching fire and spitting toxic foam, Malligavad said the mistake authorities are making is trying to clean up the big waterbodies first.

"De-siting and creating diversions lines are only temporary solutions.

All these water bodies are interconnected. If they want to rejuvenate Bellandur and Varathur lakes, they have to start it from the 'input lakes' from which the water reaches these two large ones. Once the input is clean, it will automatically clean Bellandur and Varathur," he said.

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