10 crore needed to clean up Ramakrishnapuram Lake

An estimate of Rs 10 crore has been put up for the restoration of Ramakrishnapuram Lake near Neredmet. The newly elected corporator GK Sridevi from Neredmet division said that a detailed report on the project has been submitted to the Mayor.

Talks of the Lake restoration have been making the rounds for several years now but there has been no headway. The previous corporator Mariamma Chacko had given a representation during her tenure, apart from a few surveys and visits action on the ground did not take off.

Encroachers have grabbed land on three sides of the Lake and as a result several birds, which used to make their home near it, have disappeared. The Lake that is a stone’s throw from the Ramakrishnapuram Railway Station and abuts several colonies, now stinks and is filled with horse shoe weed.

“In the past, several representations were put up by Residential Welfare Associations for a separate underground drainage line to stop sewerage getting into the Lake. However, the civic body on the pretext of lack of funds has not taken up the project,” says Ramesh a resident of G K Nagar.

Dumping of animal waste is compounding to the problems and people residing in Balaji Colony, G K Colony, Bank Colony, Sri Colony and Saptagiri Colony have been complaining about foul smell and mosquito menace.

Residents however are pinning their hopes on the civic body to take up the restoration. Srinivas Iyer, a resident of Bank Colony says, “The Lake has the potential to become a tourist spot as birds have been making their way to it.

There are lakhs of people living around the Lake and have a right to breathe clean air. The civic body needs to take up lake restoration on a war footing.”