UBL arm restores Nandi lake to pristine glory

Bengaluru: United Way Bengaluru (UWBe) organised 'Baagina Puja' at the Nandi lake, which is filled to its brim after three decades. It is indeed a proud moment for United Breweries Limited (UBL) and UWBe that started working towards the conservation of the lake and enhancement of the eco-system around it in 2018. "Rejuvenation work at Nandi lake and restoration of Kalyani and Gunduthopu" at Nandi village, Chikkaballapura district was implemented to address the degradation of eco-system and water bodies in the area. Filled with construction debris, garbage and weeds, the lake was death bed before its restoration.

The event conducted at the lake on Wednesday was attended by Prashanth Prakash, Chairman, United Way Bengaluru along with David Kumar, Lokesh Gujjarappa, K Radhakrishna Pradeep and KV Srinivas.

The UBL team present at the event included Ankita and Prafulla.

The United Way Bengaluru, Chairman, Prashanth Prakash said they work towards causes that has long-term impact and this project was taken up as a part of United Way Bengaluru's commitment towards reviving water bodies and turning them into community-nurtured spaces through our flagship campaign called 'Wake The Lake'.

"Today the rejuvenated Nandi lake potentially holds 400979 KL of water and positively impacts the environment and quality of life of 10,000 community members (directly and indirectly) living around it. We are grateful to our CSR partner UBL and the Nandi panchayat who have shared the responsibility of the project with us," Prashanth Prakash said.

The project is aligned to United Breweries Ccorporate social responsibility towards local area development by meaningfully contributing to environmental conservation and by bringing about sustainable social development for communities. A UBL spokesperson said, "At United Breweries, our key goal is to help communities around us and create shared value in that process. Water conservation is our major CSR focus area where we collaborate with implementation partners such as UWB, who help realise our vision to brew a better world.

We are also thankful to the local administration and the Nandi village Panchayat for their continued support. We stay committed towards curating programs with our partners for sustainable development of our communities."

In 2018, the project set out to restore the lake to achieve multiple benefits for the local communities and enhance the surrounding biodiversity. Desilting a 'Kalyani' or a rainwater harvesting structure, developing 'Gundu Thopu' or community forest, creation of 50 farm ponds, installation of 250 rainwater harvesting units at the household levels and in three schools, inlet cleaning and installation of pipe culvert were some of the other activities undertaken.

About 3,500 sapling have been planted which will increase the biodiversity of the area. Across all the interventions, about 4,24,471 KL of water can be potentially conserved every year.

United Way Bengaluru believes in 'mobilising the caring power of the communities' and this project would not have been possible without the guidance and support of UBL, and cooperation of panchayats and community members.