BANGALORE: Same route, same filth, same drains. So how can Ulsoor Lake be expected to be crystal clear? The lake is due to be filled up this monsoon with pure rain water. But the fresh rain water is expected to wash all the mess back into the lake. This correspondent, along with General N.S. Narahari of the Ulsoor Lake Restoration Committee, traced the pathway that rain water would take before it enters Ulsoor Lake.

First the catchment area of 11 sq km along Bangalore North and East, then along pavements and roads into the maze of storm water drains, where the real filth is stocked. On the dried bed near the bridge at Aloysius School on Assaye Road, about 800 metres away from Ulsoor Lake, lies a small pile of harmful medical waste used rubber surgical gloves, disposable needles and cotton swabs. The storm water drain, up to a distance of 1 km before the lake, had been dried up with a cordon of around 200 sandbags.

Near Buddha Vihar Road, residents throw household refuse into the storm water drain, while many others let out household sewage and sullage directly into it. Richards Town Residents' Town Welfare Association spokesperson Zafar Sait affirms that "several houses let their sewage into the drain. Many houses along the drain have encroached on public land."

Slum dwellers and construction labourers, especially children, defecating on the edge of the storm water drain are a common sight. No one cleans up the mess, and rain water washes all this into Ulsoor Lake. Furthur upstream near the Mosque Road intersection, the drain is filled with plastic covers, bottles, tender coconut shells, thermocol and other refuse, not to mention caked sewage and sullage.

Several slums and small houses have no sewage connections and are directly connected to the drain. Does this mean that the entire desilting process is an exercise in futility? Says BCC special commissioner I.S.N. Prasad: "Household sewage will be redirected into the underground drainage. We have silt traps to check the flow of solid waste, there is a 5-acre sedimentation tank where solid sediments will be collected and removed. To prevent sullying of the lake, the first flow of dirty rain water will be redirected into a diversion pipe. We are also thinking of preventing garbage being thrown into the SWDs and building a hedge to protect them." Going by the pace of the work, it looks like the monsoon will be here much before any real desilting is done.