Dear Friends,
You have been steadfast with us all along. You have been our pillar of support! This World Environment Day, we invite you to join us in a Mass Human Chain around the entire lake.
We appeal to all citizens to please join the Human Chain around Pattandur Agrahara Lake on Sunday June 5th, 8:00 am which is also the World Environment Day, in solidarity with the Lake!
For Details of HUMAN CHAIN EVENT (FB Event Page): https://fb.me/e/2C8MMS2km
Google Map Location of the Lake: bit.ly/LakeLocation
Pattandur Agrahara lake is right in the heart of Whitefield, Benglauru, and perhaps its oldest lake, built 1000 years ago by the great Chola Emperor Raja Chola. It has been under attack from vested interests and even corrupt govt officials for over 40 years. We citizens have managed to hold off the encroachments and destruction by our mass actions and legal interventions.
Vested interests and land sharks have been trying to fill the lake up quietly over the past 40 years and have forged fake documents to encroach the Survey 54 which is a lake measuring 13+ acres. Since 2017, the BBMP has also been attempting to build an illegal 80 ft road out of nowhere and leading nowhere at the behest of the land mafia in order to get the plan sanction for proposed high rise commercial complexes.
BDA has also played ball with the vested interests by deliberately omitting the lake from the RMP 2015 master plan map and instead showing the illegal 80 ft on the lake and its buffer zone.
Many citizens have been campaigning to save and restore this lake, for more than 25 years, notably CJ Singh an environmentalist and resident of Pruthvi Layout who filed several legal interventions. Since 2017, we have had a mass movement that has been publicly espousing the cause. Two public Human Chain protests were held on ECC Road, in 2017 and 2018. We have also filed several legal interventions and petitioned authorities non stop!
We were able to unearth all the relevant survey documents going all the way back to almost 150 years, and historic data to establish the fact that Pattandur Agrahara lake is a historic lake built by the Cholas almost 1000 years back.
The KTCDA has issued a STOP order on the construction of the road for now but the BBMP seeks to find some legal loopholes, to try to resume work like before.
The Human chain protests held before on the same issue in 2017 and 2018 saw thousands of citizens show up with entire families participating. Citizens are gathering again to protest, because there has been no improvement in the situation, pledging to continue the protest campaign until the illegal road is cancelled by the Govt, and the lake is revived and protected.
This is a declaration by citizens that 'The Environment, which is our Only Home, Comes First'.
See you there!
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In parallel, there will be a Tweetathon too!
For Tweetathon event: https://fb.me/e/1t3UAyVn8
#SavePattandurAgraharaLake #OnlyOneEarth #WorldEnvironmentDay