Life in Kengeri once revolved around Hosakere lake. While some swam in the lake or used its water to bathe in, others found it useful for agriculture or washing their clothes in. Brimming with water for five decades, especially during the monsoon, the lake fed the groundwater table and made sure the people never went short of water here. But with growing encroachments and sewage being discharged into it over the years, the lake changed for the worse and the very same people who were proud of it, cannot wait to move as far away from it as possible now.
“We learnt to swim in this lake which had crystal clear water. But today it has became an eyesore, covered with hyacinth and smells so foul that people of Gandhinagar, Subhashnagar and Srirama Layout near Hosakere find it hard not to hold their breath," says Mr B. M. Shivakumar, a suffering resident of Kengeri.
Not only has the lake become an unofficial dumping yard for the residents, truckloads of debris and other waste material also regularly find their way into it. "Forget swimming, you cant even dip your toe into the lake as you could end up with skin diseases and allergies, " Mr Shivakumar adds, regretting that although dengue has claimed about a dozen lives in the city, the civic authorities are doing nothing to fumigate the area which has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
"While people of Gandhinagar, Subhashnagar and Sriram Layout fall sick frequently neither the BDA nor the BBMP have bothered to fumigate the area to keep the mosquitoes away ," he deplores, also wondering why the authorities have turned a blind eye to the rampant encroachment of the lake. The BDA which is supposed to revive the lake, has planned to build a jogging track, a boating facility and so on around it, but the work is just hobbling along, Mr Shivakumar regrets.