Bengaluru: Cubbon Park rejuvenation unveiled

Bengaluru: On the eve of World Water Day, the State Horticulture Department unveiled the Cubbon Park rejuvenation project here on Sunday. To surmount water crisis looming over the city ecologists have called for reviving open wells and shallow aquifers as sources of water.

In 2019 apart from two ponds -- Karagada Kunte and another behind Wodeyar statue along with 73 recharge wells of 3ft diameter and average depth of 15ft depth and seven traditional open wells were rejuvenated. Each well has the potential to recharge up to 6 KL during rainfall. India Cares Foundation along with Friends of Lakes and Biome Environmental Trust worked on the project. The team had spent the last two years working on the project.

"Assuming 30 rainy days these wells can recharge 13140KL annually. These ponds cover an area of 280 sqm and it can be assumed that these ponds recharge about 200KL annually.

The wells and the lake put together have the potential to recharge 13340KL annually," India Cares Foundation claimed.

As the extraction of water from the wells was carried out the need for increasing the groundwater recharge was felt so as to replenish the groundwater table as well as set up a model rainwater harvesting system at the park.

It was observed that despite heavy rains, parts of the park that would frequently flood did not flood this time and continued to remain usable for most parts of the year. It was also observed that the groundwater level in the open wells never fell below 10ft from ground level even during the summer season.

"Assuming 300 acres of park area, a 10% runoff and an annual rainfall of 970mm , it can be estimated that annually about 1,17,738KL of water is the runoff from the park. As a result of this work, the flooding in certain parts of the lake seems to have reduced and hence made those parts of the park accessible.

Water level has stayed at a maximum of about 10ft below ground level even in the summer season. While it's too early to speak of overall impact the above has been observed," the Foundation stated.

"India Cares Foundation wanted to clean the pond in the park and while working on it we came across seven wells in a dilapidated condition. The recharge of wells has made us understand that it could be used as a flood mitigation strategy as well," Ram Prasad, co-founder of Friends of Lakes told The Hans India.

The recharge of wells also brought the Manu Vaddars, the traditional well-digging community, to the limelight.

Prasad stated they played a major role in cleaning up the wells and they had the knowledge of how water could be recharged through wells.