Bengaluru, also known as India’s Silicon Valley, was initially dubbed the ‘Land of Lakes’ because to the city’s enormous number of lakes. However, the city has lost its former splendour to concrete monstrosities of urbanisation and the hundreds of serene lakes face extinction. This has also resulted in a major water shortage in one of the country’s largest cities.
These lakes have formed the backbone of the city’s water supply from time immemorial and must be maintained. Anand Malligavad, a Bengaluru-based mechanical engineer who quit his cushy job to try and preserve and rejuvenate these water bodies of the city.
‘My primary school was in a lake bed because of which I used to spend a lot of time near the lake. That’s how my connection with lakes developed’, Malligavad said.
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He arrived in Bengaluru in 1996, when the city was still unaffected by development. When asked what prompted him to consider the city’s lake revitalization, he said that it was the city’s growing water dilemma in a metropolis that was once abundant with water .
As a result, he began to consider how to restore the lost lakes of the city. ‘In 2016, I started researching about lakes. I studied hundreds of lakes and started understanding soil, topography, shape, catchment area and other things. Then, I decided to rejuvenate a 36-acre lake located near my office’, Malligavad explained.
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However, getting to this monumental feat wasn’t simple. He was told that revitalising such a large lake would cost roughly 10-15 crores and take around 1.5 years. He was short on both time and resources. But he was adamant about not giving up!
He said,’After thorough research, I devised a way through which I could rejuvenate a lake in less than 1 crore and in less than 45 days. In April 2017, I began working on it and rejuvenated it in 45 days, at a cost of fewer than 95 lakh. This is how the journey started’.
‘Over a period of time, along with the job, I could rejuvenate three lakes. Then I resigned from my job and started working as a lake conservationist full-time. As of now, I’ve rejuvenated 12 lakes and two are in progress’, he further said.
Malliagavd had to overcome various obstacles in his way. It wasn’t an easy road for him, from securing financing from corporations to engaging communities, but he finally surmounted hurdles to make a huge difference with his work in Bengaluru’s lakes conservation.
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