Sir,

Following a letter published in this column and in other local papers, the Forest Department authorities took the trouble to clean up the Lingambudhi Lake recently.

The regular walkers heaved a sigh of relief when they saw that they could once again continue to walk in one of the best parts of the lake — the Western side. However, it lasted only a couple of days.

The miscreants are back again emptying their used plastic bottles, packing materials and what not, into the lake. I suspect some shopkeepers or caterers to be behind this.

There’s a small gate there on the Kautilya School side for the convenience of those who want to enter the lake from Dattagalli area. This is very far from the front gate.

This gate is being used to dump all the garbage into the Lake. The photos show the difference in just two days. What a pathetic sight it is today!

There’s only one security guard during the day and three during the night time. This is clearly not sufficient, for the Lake area is pretty big in size.  The Forest Department would do well to install concealed cameras at vantage points, which will help them to book the nuisance makers easily.

When it can do so in bigger places like Bandipur and Nagarhole, why can’t it do the same thing in this Reserve Forest too? If they do not take any action at the earliest, the Lake will once again become an eyesore.

Their neglect will also help anti-social elements in cutting the trees and bamboos, and carting them away to make easy money. Also there are hundreds of birds, including the national bird, whose lives are at stake.

– P.L. Jothindra, Ramakrishnanagar, 6.5.2022

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