Lake and park monitoring initiatives fail to take off in Bengaluru due to lack of preparedness

BBMP Special Commissioner (Lakes) Preeti Gehlot said, “We could not operationalise the initiative because we had technical challenges regarding the application. We still need to fix the technical issues, and only then will we be able to take this initiative forward. Currently, no volunteer is being assigned any lakes or parks. We must create more awareness on this initiative to attract more volunteers.”

As part of the initiative, the registered volunteers will be given login credentials, enabling them to be part of the lake/park monitoring mechanism. Of the total volunteers registered for a particular park or a lake, 10 volunteers for every lake/park will be selected every month through an online randomisation process.

MA Khan, a resident of Varthur, said, “Initiatives like these look very promising on paper. But it does not translate into reality and hardly creates an impact. Just lake monitoring is not enough. It is important to crack down on violators who pollute lakes by penalising them. The volunteers for such initiatives should have powers to report the violations to the authorities and initiate action against polluters.”

Raghavendra B Pachhapur, a lake activist, said, “Kere Mithra is a welcome initiative that encourages volunteers concerned about lakes to be part of the lake conservation efforts in Bengaluru. Building a cadre of environmentally conscious volunteers is necessary to sustain lake conservation in an urban environment.

“I had registered for a lake in South Bengaluru and haven’t heard so far. A minimum expectation from a registration is confirmation after registration. Irrespective of what work is going behind the Kere Mithra initiative, an email can sustain a volunteer’s motivation,” he added.

He also said, “BBMP should go ahead with the kere mitra initiative irrespective of the number of registrations. Let all the volunteers come on a platform for lake conservation and sustaining the lake ecology in Bengaluru.”