Corporates adopt 6 lakes in Bangalore for Rejuvenation
The Government of Karnataka has signed MOUs with six corporates in the state for the rejuvenation of six lakes in Bangalore.
The MoUs were announced by the Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy at Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Karnataka Annual Meet 2019 in the city today. On January 10th, during the executive committee meeting of the Karnataka Tank Conservation and Development Authority, the Chief Minister had said that there needs to be a concerted effort to revive the 204 lakes in Bangalore.
The six lakes adopted by industry are Kenchenhalli Lake (Adopted by: Meritor CVC India Ltd.), Doddathogur Lake (ELCIA), Shikaripalya Lake (Wipro), Yarandahalli Lake (Biocon), Kammasandra Lake (Biocon), and Maragondanahalli Lake (Timken India Ltd.).
The Chief Minister said that the Government of Karnataka is committed to the rejuvenation of lakes in the state. He assured full support of the state government to any corporate that comes forward to assist the government in this regard.
Dr. N Muthukumar, Chairman CII Karnataka said that CII is working closely with Government to ensure that Karnataka becomes a water positive state by 2030. As per the MoU, the adoption of lakes will lead to the holistic development and cleaning of the water bodies in a sustainable manner.
“I am looking forward to kickstarting an air quality initiative with the Premji Foundation. We will work with the Pollution Control Board and the Forestry department,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson and Managing Director Biocon. This project is expected to be launched soon. She spoke of using air quality sensors across the city to get real time data that could be used to make more agile decisions. She said that we need to leverage everything that we have done right to become agile and start developing technology-based leadership in a global sense. “We are always late to plan. If we need to be agile through the use of technology we must plan now,” she said.
“We can use robotics to end manual scavenging and Bangalore being the IT capital of the country should take the lead in this,” she added.
K J George, Minister for Large and Medium, Industries, Government of Karnataka spoke of the governments urban mobility initiatives around infrastructure : Satellite Town Ring Road, Peripheral Ring Road, Metro, Suburban trains and the controversial Elevated Toll Road. He said that in a bid to decongest the city the government will build an elevated corridor of around 100 to 110 kilometres at the cost of Rs. 25000 to Rs. 30,000 crores. While the elevated road would be tolled the road below could be used for free. He said that the Metro was a viable project and has foreign investors competing to invest in it.
Aman Choudhari, Managing Director of Surin Automotive Pvt. Ltd was elected the new Chairman of CII Karnataka and Sandeep Singh, Managing Director, Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Co Pvt Ltd will serve as the Vice chairman CII Karnataka.
