Today’s visit focused on Kalkunte lake, which lies on the edge of the rural village of Kalkunte Agrahara, east of Bengaluru. We started by visiting an open well near the lake which, although covered with a metal grate, still had a layer of solid waste floating on the surface. It didn’t have an odor like we’ve smelled in other wells, which we were told indicated that it wasn’t being contaminated by sewage.
The first open well we’ve visited with Biome.
We then walked along the bund on the south side of the lake. During our walk we learned about the lake and some of the issues facing it. The lake is artificial, at least 300 years old. It is 28 acres and has 1 outlet and 3 inlets, one of which is fed by another lake. The outfall flows into the river Dakshina Pinakini. There used to be a sluice gate that was used by farmers below the bund to farm approximately 30 acres of rice, but it was inoperable and appeared to be sealed closed. There is no known sewage flowing into the lake.
There was thought to be some encroachment in some areas of the lake. The lake had not been rejuvenated within the known history of the village. It has recently been cleaned up to remove solid waste but still needed to be desilted - which was evident by how shallow the lake appeared to be despite how high the water level was. There was significant farming activity on all sides of the lake. Areas of the bund that were steeper showed significant erosion on the upstream side. Locals said that the lake had never been full that they could remember and it would dry up completely in the summer months prior to 2018. Now that it has water in it year round and fills up completely in the rainy season, they wanted to see it rejuvenated.
View of the lake from the west and east (by outlet) ends of the bund
We met some of the farmers who lived alongside the lake and they showed us the location of a well that they had historically used for agriculture. It was overgrown and had branches that had fallen in it. They explained that when the lake was dry it also dried up and they had started using water from a bore well instead and the well had fallen into disrepair from disuse.
We learned about the planned rejuvenation of the lake which will start with the cleaning of all three inlets. The rejuvenation will continue by building a temporary bund to divide the lake in half and desilting each half of the lake separately to remove a total of 4800 cubic meters of material and increase the current water storage capability by approximately 48 lakh (or 4.8 million for those new to Indian numbers) liters. The bund will also be built up 2-3 feet and areas that were being eroded will be reinforced with stone pitching as needed. Finally a stone or concrete wall will be erected around the lake to protect it from waste being dumped and from encroachment.
After the tour of the southern edge of the lake, we drove into town where the rejuvenation community meeting was being hosted at Kalkunte Sri Ranganatha Swamy Temple. There community members including a member of the local Grama Panchayat, funders, NGOs and even children from a local school came together to learn about the rejuvenation project. The meeting began with a delicious breakfast provided by the temple. We then proceeded upstairs into a meeting room setup with a projector where a Pūjari gave a Puja in Sanskrit followed by every person present introducing themselves. The school children were asked how they felt about the lake and we heard their responses. It was obvious that the entire community, even the children, cared about the lake.
The majority of the rest of the meeting was done in Kannada and we were grateful for the translator that had come with us who was able to take notes throughout the presentations and explain what was said after the meeting concluded. Most of the slides used both Kannada as well as English which helped us follow along. The meeting continued by introducing Biome and another organization Arohana, that is “working towards women empowerment, environmental protection and development of rural education.” Arohana has already done a similar rejuvenation project in other lakes.
We also heard from one of the Rotary clubs that are sponsoring the rejuvenation project. The Rotary clubs were also helping the temple build a new room and helping the local government school upgrade their facilities and education. The members of the Rotary that we heard from talked about growing up in the community. While they no longer lived there, they still held strong ties to the community and returned for events and festivals and obviously desired to give back to the community they came from. The meeting covered the lake rejuvenation benefits, discussed possible options, and even covered a variety of water conservation methods that we all could be doing to live more sustainable lives. We finished the meeting with several group photos before returning to the ground floor for another amazing meal.
We finished the visit by talking with Biome about what projects we might be working on over the next 7 weeks. We could potentially be developing methods to teach children in schools about water sustainability topics, teaching schools about rainwater harvesting methods, helping with documentation for rainwater harvesting infrastructure that’s already been installed, inspecting hand dug wells all over Bengaluru to monitor water levels, cleanliness, and meet with the well diggers, or continue to work on the project we visited today to determine the total catchment area of the lake and monitor the rejuvenation process. We are all excited to see what the coming weeks will bring and are looking forward to meeting more of the Biome team and learning all that we can from them while contributing to what is being accomplished.
Map of Kalkunte Lake
Detail of Eastern end of lake
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