Hundreds of dead fishes have been floating for the last one week on Mottanalluru lake in South Bengaluru due to an inflow of chemicals, effluents, and pesticides from surrounding industries and agricultural fields.
Local residents allege that they were forced to live with the stench of dead fish despite complaining to the officials for the last week. After the stench became unbearable, lake activists and residents complained to local authorities including the KSPCB and a team of officials inspected the site on Saturday and collected samples of the waterbody.
Senior officials from Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) said that fish in the water body is killed because of the sudden dip in dissolved oxygen (DO) in the lake and also the inflow of effluents and pesticides from surrounding industries and agricultural fields.
Meanwhile, the residents said that the chemicals and effluents discharged from the industries located in Chandapura are flowing towards the Mottanalluru lake which is the main reason for dead fish found in the lake. “The level of contamination has increased from many days in this lake, the discharge is mainly coming from Chandapura lake. This discharge is from the industrial unit located in and around the Chandapura lake,” said Santosh KC a lake activist and local resident.
The dramatic growth of Bengaluru over the last two decades has led to massive amounts of domestic and industrial waste flowing into the lake in the city.
The encroachment of vast swathes of its catchment area by hundreds of apartment blocks, and the dumping of garbage on its shores, have throttled the flow of water into the lake and killed its biodiversity over time. The flow of untreated sewage and industrial waste has rendered the lake’s water unusable for even irrigation.
