Revival of lake apace at Masjid Banda

Kondapur: Five trucks of plastic including water lettuce were removed from the Kudikunta Lake at Masjid Banda in Kondapur recently. The lake had a huge amount of plastic in the birds landing area. An NGO called Society for Advancement of Human Endeavor (SAHE) conducted the clean drive, which would greatlybirds and turtles.Volunteers rescued an Indian flap shell turtle which was stuck in a plastic bag.

The clean drive was organised and funded by SAHE and Redcentric, an IT servicesmanagement company. More than 50 volunteers and locals took part in lake cleaning drive.Speaking to The Hans India,Kalpana Ramesh, founder of ‘Live the Lakes,’ said, “After seeing the distress birds and turtles are going through, to save them and welcome them to the lake we have cleaned bird landing areas. 

Trying to unblock some main illegal drainage lines into the lake that brought loads of floating sludge into the lake, we have also distributed bioremediation engines among the community who live around the lake.This engine has been installed at their toilets to clean their drainage, which has helped turning black water into a brown. We are also waking up the other residents to install legal storage lines because the builder has constructed an illegal storage line into the lake, which is causing a health hazard to the community as well.”

Kalpana further said that the aim is to protect the lake completely and hopefully soon it will turn a mini forest and butterfly island on a natural swamp, along with gravel beds for birds. Bioremediation is a process used to treat contaminated water by altering environmental conditions to stimulate the growth of microorganisms and degrade the target pollutants in order to clean a polluted site,she added.Some of IT employees have planted trees around the lake under the Haritha Haram programme. Pernod Ricard India Pvt Ltd donated Rs 7 lakh for the development of lake.