Bangalore Metro to Help Rejuvenate Kengeri & Veerasandra Lakes

From frothing up with toxic foam to drying out, Bangalore’s urban lakes have recently not been in the news for the right reasons. In an effort to rejuvenate a couple of them and speed things up, the Karnataka state government recently asked the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation to assist with rejuvenating the Kengeri & Veerasandra Lakes which are located along the Bangalore Metro’s new lines in Phase 2.

The well maintained Ulsoor lake – Photo Copyright: Gayathri Setty

The neglected Kengeri Lake shot in 2013 – Photo Copyright: Lakes in Bangalore”>

Metro corps in the country have previously been handed projects outside of their core competency to help speed things up due to their superior project management office and work ethic. While that might be debatable in Bangalore’s case, it is what it is. In Delhi, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation recently helped to build a road tunnel to connect the AIIMS hospital’s main campus with its Trauma Centre in order to reduce the time taken by ambulances from 30 minutes to just 3 minutes!

Here’s a map with the locations of both lakes:

Bangalore Metro Phase 2 map with locations of the Kengeri & Veerasandra lakes in purple

As seen above, the Kengeri lake is located next to the proposed Mailasandra station on the Purple line’s 6.465 km extension from Mysore Road to Kengeri, and the Veerasandra lake is located next to the proposed Electronics City 1 station on the new RV Road to Bommasandra line.

While I was away on a much needed vacation, the BMRCL’s General Manager for Finance announced the notification calling for bids to prepare the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the Kengeri lake:

Tender calling for preparation of DPR for Kengeri lake rejuvenation issued. See today's Advt in DH TOI & VK

— Vasanth Rao (@uavasanthrao) November 25, 2015

Tender notification for Kengeri lake’s rejuvenation- source: TOI

Urban Bangalore has more than 100 lakes and tanks, so while this task seems too little in the battle to save them all, it is a good start at least!

As for the metro’s development, the BMRCL recently conducted full length trials all the way from Baiyappanahalli to MG Road, a distance of 18.1 km. Read more about that here.

For more updates on the Bangalore metro, check out the Bangalore section of The Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG