Monday, February 17, 2020

Moving forward together

Come June, PNLIT will be ten years old, completing a decade of the nurturing of Puttenahalli Lake! Time has really flown by. 

Residents of the neighbourhood, donors, volunteers, CSR funders - it is with your help that we have been able to maintain the lake and carry out environmental projects and awareness-related activities for ten long years. Your support has made our Puttakere truly a People's Lake and a model for many others in the city. A recent episode feature on Republic TV has catapulted PNLIT to the national level. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been a part of our journey.
  
We work closely with the government and, as you would be aware, BBMP and BWSSB are in the process of preventing sewage from entering the lake once and for all. We are also actively pursuing slum rehabilitation. We are close to achieving our goals with transforming the lake. What will be required in the future is regular maintenance by PNLIT and vigilance from the neighbourhood to protect the lake. 

We're almost at the end of FY 2019-20 and we, at PNLIT, have started planning for the new financial year. Our estimated annual expenses for FY 2020-21 are Rs 12.55 lakhs, which we look to raise through individual donations and corporate grants/CSR. 


A grant of Rs. 2,45,000 from Wipro will bring down the target to a little over Rs. 10 lakhs.   

This is an appeal to everyone to donate to PNLIT for our neighbourhood lake - in your individual capacity and/or through your organisation. Do refer us to your CSR department. You will find a dedicated team of lake conservationists in us!

For those seeking income tax exemption under section 80G, this might be your last chance, given the new proposed income tax rules.

In addition to the annual expenses, we are also looking to build up the Corpus Fund, so that in future, the interest earned would meet the annual maintenance expenses to a large extent. Donations to the Corpus Fund will be much appreciated.

There are many ways in which you can make a donation – cheque, cash (up to Rs 2000) and direct transfer. You may also donate through a payment gateway as a last option – avoidable as there are 2% - 3% extra charges involved, and we'd much prefer to directly utilize every rupee you donate. Please visit our web page for details http://www.puttenahallilake.in/how-to-donate.

Together let us nurture and protect our Puttenahalli Puttakere and give our children an increasingly rare gift - a thriving lake.   

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” —Ryunosuke Satoro 

Best regards,
The PNLIT Team

Monday, February 3, 2020

Report on the Feb 2020 Family Fun Gardening Day

8-year old Adarsh was at the lake with his grandmother, much before the start time of 9:30 a.m. for the family gardening fun!

Our main task was to prune the overgrown hedge in the viewing deck, then clear the leaves to add to the compost bin. Adarsh was up for all of it and along with his grandmother he set to task. After having done more than a quarter of the deck, we all felt a bit tired and started to rake the leaves to rest our palms. Pruning and clearing the whole deck today looked impossible.



When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it - goes a saying. And the universe did conspire and out of nowhere came an army soldier to help us!

He was doing his run around the lake, saw a young kid and two ladies going chop chop and getting tired. He politely asked if he can also join in and went about pruning half the deck and more around the area. Seeing him we were also filled with new energy and finished all our tasks.


Turned out the soldier is on leave from his posting in J&K, he is in Bangalore to help his parents settle and has been visiting our lake for his daily runs as he has to keep fit. We had to ask him to stop as it was over 11 a.m.

Salute to the soldier, and to Adarsh and his grandmom, and their helping spirit. May their tribe increase.

Warmly,
Sapana