Historic Anekere tank set to shrink for road widening

Mangaluru: The historic Anekere lake built by Pandyaraja of the Jain dynasty is now going to lose not less than 8 acres of land out of a total of 24 acres. Thanks to the mindless and needless road widening the lake will be smaller and narrower. The State government has taken up the widening of the road in a place where hardly a few vehicles ply as the road connecting the lake from the national highway 169 is already wide enough to cater to not just present traffic but also a long time in the future. The lake has been identified as one of the world's lake sites as it receives migratory birds from over 24 regions in the world. It also has a resident bird population.

Why the road widening? When asked a PWD official stated that there was heavy political pressure as the town municipality wanted the road connectivity to the national highway wider than the present 14 meters on all three sides of the lake. According to the plans, 18 feet of lake land will be acquired for a distance of 250 meters, which roughly works out to eight acres which is exactly one-third of the total lake area.

The historic Anekere lake has started shrinking in area over the recent years for many more reasons including encroachment by private builders. According to the municipality records, the lake was spread in 24 acres in 1984, but the engineers in the town planning say that it could be not more than 20 acres now. As King Pandya, the sixth had built a Basadi in between the lake, called "Kerebasadi". Elephants used to play in the lake during the rule of Bairavarasa, one of the rulers of Karkala.

Many environmentalists, academicians, intellectuals and scientists have tried to save the lake from heavy weeding, siltation and encroachments.Some of the names are: Prof. SA Hussain, Dr Prabhakar, Dr Kota ShivaramaKaranth, Dr NA Madhyastha and many more have fought with the government to protectAnekere. Even the school children and social service clubs helped the town in keeping the lake free from weeds. Dr Karanth had moved the high court to save the lake being reclaimed for building a bus stand for Karkala town. The history to save Anekere goes back to 1939 when the MP of Malabar region KB Jinaraj Hegde got an order signed by the viceroy to prevent commercial harvesting of the lake, which had given Anekere lake its place on the hallowed list of 18 most important water bodies of the coastal Karnataka region. A Chaturmukha Jain basadi which has been built in the middle of the lake is also a heritage structure having over 400 years of history.

The local environmentalists have petitioned the Karkala Municipality and MLA Sunil Kumar who is also the energy minister. But even as they fear their petitions will not be taken note of by the authorities, the work of reclaiming the lake area is going briskly.