Interactive walk at Puttenahalli Lake - 18th Jan 2026

Conducted by Biome in association with PNLIT

Do you know how does Puttenahalli Lake talk to the groundwater?

Lakes contribute to groundwater recharge. Our Puttenahalli lake (JP Nagar 7th Phase) is an example of water circularity where treated wastewater from Southcity apartment  is let into the lake and it recharges the groundwater contributing to the yield of borewells in the neighborhood.

Join us to know the groundwater aspect of our lake.

Followed by the discussion on
Sustainable Water Management practices in adherence with the bylaws.

We’ll start at 7:30 a.m. No registration required. Just land up at the gazebo @ Puttakere.

Update on Puttenahalli Lake revival

Happy to report that both BBMP and BWSSB are hard at work at our Puttenahalli Lake. BBMP has pumped out most of the water and are now getting trenches dug to drain the pools. Following this, they will begin removing some of the silt and muck from the basin, desilt the wetland, strengthen the bund, etc., etc. 

Trenches being made in lake bed to drain water

BWSSB has begun laying pipes for the underground drain. It is slow work since they are drilling deep into and along the ground taking care to ensure that the adjoining houses in the slum are not disturbed. Once they are done, sewage will be diverted into the new drain. At last!

Underground drain pipes being laid

Pipe welding

We are keeping our fingers crossed for BWSSB and BBMP to  work smoothly. If they are able to follow their schedule, the lake will be ready for a new beginning with the monsoon. 

We are excited about starting afresh too. For, in these ten years, it was not only the lake that evolved but our understanding of its ecosystem as well. With the lessons we have learned, we look forward to carry out new plans to make the lake and the surroundings even more attractive to birds, butterflies, insects, tortoise, turtles and what have you.

As we embark on this new journey, here's an opportunity to join us and share the wonderful experience of bringing the lake back to life once again. What can be greater than serving and connecting with nature? That too, in your neighbourhood? 

We need volunteers and funds. Please contribute generously to our ongoing donation drive. You can make your payment by Cheque (favouring 'PNLIT") or by direct remittance. For guidelines, see http://www.puttenahallilake.in/how-to-donate  Donations to PNLIT are eligible for 80G IT exemption.   

Best regards,

PNLIT Team

A very rare visitor indeed!

Last Monday, when our gardeners came to the lake expecting a day of routine work, little did they know what awaited them. On the revetment near the southern side, was a small tortoise that they had never seen before in our lake. Excitedly, they sent us the pictures of the tortoise with a distinctive golden brown star-like pattern on the hard shell. We’d never seen one like it either but there was no mistaking it - it was the Indian star tortoise! Wasn’t it an endangered species? We quickly looked up online and also contacted our in-house wildlife experts, Vishnupriya and J.N. Prasad.

The Indian star tortoise (Geochelone elegans), considered to be one of the world’s most beautiful tortoises with its distinctive carapace, is found in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Extensive poaching for the exotic pet trade has reduced their number and threatened their existence.

To keep the tortoise safe, we took it out from the revetment and put it in an open basket. Vishnupriya and J.N. Prasad came by to see our exotic find and to guide us on how to take care of it. They also told us to contact Mr. Ganesh, RFO, Bannerghatta National Park or Dr. Roopa Satish at the Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center.  We contacted both of them and arranged to send the reptile over. Meanwhile, we got some greens, carrot and cauliflower for it to eat and placed the basket in our office room for the night. The next morning we shifted our “guest” into a cardboard carton and kept it outside to bask in the sun. We watched quietly as it popped its head out, walked toward the feed and started eating.

Two days later, on Wednesday morning, we took it to the RFO’s office and handed it over to them safely. Our job was done. Today morning, we received this update from Mr. Ganesh:

The star tortoise is under preliminary  medical  care at Bannerghatta and will be released to wild after a week of observation for possible infection due to human contact. Thanks for a saving a precious endangered wildlife. It makes a huge difference in protecting the species on this planet.

Thank you

Regards 

Ganesh RFO

Bannerghatta National Park

We still wonder how it came to the lake.  Did someone develop cold feet and drop it off for fear of being caught? Whatever the reason, we are glad that we were able to rescue and rehabilitate an endangered Indian star tortoise.

For more pictures, please click on the link below: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fAFPZufc3oOw9cyHPcvPC7OPGmVAPpqq?usp=sharing

Best regards

Divya

Photos by: Ramu (PNLIT Gardener),  Rashmi (Manager) and Usha Rajagopalan 

Will Bangalore run out of water?

A recent article on the BBC website listed 11 cities worldwide, most likely to run out of drinking water, like what has already happened at Cape Town (South Africa). The article can be read here. Sao Paulo (Brazil) is at No. 1, and Bangalore is at number 2. 

Mr Vishwanath, one of Bangalore's water experts has written a rejoinder article that can be read here, explaining why Bangalore is unlikely to go dry as predicted. While it is comforting to read, we cannot afford to be complacent or indifferent. Water scarcity is real, frightening and imminent if we do not act, not just in Bangalore, but wherever we live.  

Harvest rainfall. Save water. Save lakes!

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Preparing the lake for the monsoon

March and April are scorching months but that's also when we get our lake ready for the monsoon.  VMware volunteers came over on 31st March to help us.

In the past when the lake was largely dry with only little pools of water that shrank by the day, volunteers had to pick up plastic bags, stray slippers, bottles and the like from a much larger area. This year with most of the 10 acre lake bed under water, only the highest point was dry and piled with the alligator weed removed from the water. If left there, they would sprout with the first shower. Some of the quickly multiplying salvinia molesta were trapped in the trash boom waiting to be lifted out. We may hate the plant but the fresh Salvinia makes a good manure. It had to be mixed with the dry leaves heaped in rows. Further, we wanted some big boulders brought to the wetland.

Volunteers at work

Many tasks and many hands. From 9 a.m. to noon, the volunteers from VMware led by Guruprasad Cashikar slaved under the hot sun doing each one of these with great cheer even though sweat dripped from their faces. They finished all the chores assigned to them but there's still more to do.

More volunteers are welcome!  

Puttenahalli Lake begins to overflow!

For the first time since PNLIT took up the cause of saving Puttenahalli Lake, the water level has increased so much that it has begun to overflow into the waste weir! We can't contain our excitement. We have managed to get a once dry lake brimming with water! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!

The sight of water, water everywhere warms our hearts but it also means that we have more work in store, keeping more water clean. With the water, a lot of trash has come our way, but we have been able to trap quite a bit of it. 

See the photos. Better still, visit the lake! 

Cheers

PNLIT team

With Success Comes Responsibility

A dry for years lake finally looks like a proper water body. Ever since we took up the cause of Puttenahalli Lake over seven years ago, this had been one of our goals - to see the entire  lake bed submerged. After a heavy downpour the previous evening, we saw just this. A marvellous sight on on World Environment Day, Sunday 5th June. From one end to the other, from this side to that, there's water, water everywhere at Puttenahalli Lake! 

20th May 2014

6th June 2015

For over a year, excess treated waste water from the STP at South City Apartment Complex is being discharged into the lake. This has percolated and saturated thoroughly the earth below before showing up on the surface. The rain water added to this increasing the level to an unprecedented height. 

While we were taking it all in, total strangers came up to us and expressed their delight. We were elated but what ran in our heads was a new concern, a new challenge - how do we keep the water clean? 

We need to pluck out new shoots of the the alligator weed from the water. Remove at once the plastic bags of Puja offerings and bottles that the insensitive manage to fling over the grill before our guys can stop them.  Yellappa, the fisherman, we had engaged to remove the invasive weeds in April is unable to get workers willing to work in the cold water. By the time the water warms up, would the weeds have grown wild once again? Or will the fish that are thriving, indeed jumping in and out of the water merrily, eat the young shoots quickly enough?

6th June 2016

The rain did not only fill the lake. It also dissolved the nutrients in the water. Unfortunately, on 27th May a sewage chamber on Nataraja Layout had collapsed and the contents had gone straight into the lake gathering along the way all the plastic and trash in the drain. Fortunately, they were contained within the wetland. We had contacted BWSSB immediately and JE Mr. Nagaraj attended to it. By the time he got it repaired, however, sewage had been flooding the wetland for four days and nights. We hoped that the heavy rains over the next few days would dilute the sewage and reduce the damage it can do to the quality of the water. But with the increased level the trash floated higher and higher. The boulders forming the wetland is about seven feet high but now at some points it is less than half a foot above the water.

To make matters worse, the sewage chamber collapsed once again on the night of 5th June! The heavy traffic had not allowed the fresh cement on the new manhole to cure properly. People had removed the obstacles placed on the road and gone over the manhole cover breaking it. As if this is not enough, according to BWSSB Nagaraj, people living on either side of the road diverted the rain water from their homes into the sewage line adding to the load. He got it repaired yet again but this time we were wiser. One of our well wishers, Srinivas Alavilli spoke to the Hulimavu traffic police and got a man posted to divert traffic, With this, we hope that we have solved at least one problem, for the present. 

Now to tackle the danger of the muck flowing over the stones of the wetland into the main lake which we had got cleaned in April with such difficulty. BWSSB was unable to get workers at such short notice. Nor could BBMP. Our two gardeners came to the rescue. Together with the BBMP contractor's man assigned to our lake, Jayanna and Ramu entered the stinky cesspool in a coracle and using long handled rakes pushed the floating garbage to a side from where they brought it out of the water. We paid them for this of course but it was hardly any compensation for the relief it gave us. We'd managed to prevent the bulk of the plastic waste from polluting the lake. Truly, with success comes greater responsibility. 

Sewage overflowing on the road

Trash in wetland

Trash removed from wetland

In our lake chronicles, this is the "low" of having water in the lake. Look out for the exciting "highs" soon to follow!

Usha

The lake after the May showers

Puttenahalli Lake (Pic: Jaba)

Panoramic view (Pic: Usha Rajagopalan)

Aerial view (Pic: Geetha Balan)

With just two showers, yesterday and the day before, the water level has increased considerably making the lake an absolutely delightful sight. More photos here

Do visit the lake, take photographs and share them with us and all. 

Green to Clean

We are delighted to tell you that finally our lake is showing, almost, its true glory! The alligator weed which had covered most of the entire expanse of the water has been removed thanks to funding received from Deloitte Shared Services India Private Limited. 

27-Mar-2016 Before deweeding

18-Apr-2016

Their CSR support enabled us to hire Yellappa and his team of fishermen who began work from 3rd April and completed it on the 20th. They were an excellent group of workers who did not let anything deter them. Not the heat nor the water snakes nor the tangled shoots of the alligator weed which had spread like a large thick sheet over the water. 

Deweeding in progress

Indeed, except for us trustees and a few regular visitors to the lake, almost everyone who spoke to us doubted if there was any water at all in the lake. But little by little the water started to show as the men cut the weed deep down in the water and hauled the strips along for their colleagues to pull onto the land.They piled it along one side of the lake bed which is higher and still dry land. And what huge heaps they made! BBMP helped us dispose these off. They have sent a couple of JCBs to dig deep pits in the lake bed and tractors to fill the pits with the waste. 

We've documented all these through photographs, a selection of which you can see here. Yesterday evening, as if in celebration of Earth Day (22nd April), Yellappa released over 1200 fingerlings in the water. The four species of fish released included the Grass Carp which feeds on aquatic plants. We hope it lives up to its name and keeps the weeds under control. 

22-Apr-2016 Fish being released into the water

It is for the first time since 2009 that the lake has some water at this time of the year. (See here for pictures through the past few years.) This is because rather than depend on the unreliable monsoon, we have treated waste water from South City STP feeding the lake. What a welcome sight it is!     

21-Apr-2016

While we can now breathe easier than in the past few months, our work isn't done yet. We need to ensure that the lake remains free of all invasive aquatic weeds and implement measures to improve the quality of the water. 

It has been a long haul for both the lake and us, trustees, who are driven more by passion than by qualification or prior experience in conservation. We would not have been able to come this far without the help of all our supporters, donors and volunteers. Among many others, we would like to thank especially BBMP (lakes), South City apartment owners' association, Fisheries Dept, and Yellappa and his men. Above all, our heartfelt thanks to Deloitte Shared Services India Private Limited, our CSR Partner in this "Clean Puttenahalli Lake Project". 

- Usha Rajagopalan

How much water entered the lake?

It rained heavily in Bangalore last night.

"How much water entered the lake last night?" This is the question we've been asked since morning. Well, this is the first thing we checked ourselves. The answer - take a look at the photos. For a comparison, we've attached an aerial view of the lake taken by Geetha Srikrishnan on 17th August 2015, after the rain the previous night. Her aerial view of the lake taken today is attached as well. Thanks to Geetha and Amod for helping us answer The Question with their photographs.

17th August 2015  (Pic: Geetha Srikrishnan)

5th September 2015 (Pic: Geetha Srikrishnan)

5th September 2015 (Pic: Amod Malviya)

It is said to have been a stormy rainy night when Sri Krishna was born and hence it invariably rains on the eve of Janmashtami. Or perhaps the downpour last night was the precursor to the North East Monsoon, well ... 

:-)

Janmashtami greetings to all from us at PNLIT.

And happy Teachers' Day to our teachers.

Best regards

Usha

Lake Alive: Puttenahalli Kere Habba 2015

Please join us at Lake Alive: Puttenahalli Kere Habba 2015 on Saturday 21st February. 

The festivities will start from 3 p.m. and go on till 7 p.m. See the schedule below for the exciting sessions. Entry is free and open to all.  

Kere Habba is an initiative of the Namma Bengaluru Foundation to promote conservation of lakes. Partnering PNLIT in this event is Arghyam's India Water Portal. 

Do share this announcement in your community forums, with family and friends. 

We look forward to sharing the enjoyment of the kere and the habba with you on 21st February. 

Best regards,

Usha

Chairperson, PNLIT

The Planned Schedule

At "The Anchor"

3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.  Craft Making

3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.  Live Music

4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.  Djembe Djembe

4:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Craft Making

5:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.  Djembe Djembe

5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.  Auction of art pieces 

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.  Craft Making

6:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.  Film show

Faunatoon Corner

3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.  Cartoonist Ananth at Work

Foto Fun

3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m  

Photos to be collected at 4:30 p.m and 6:30 p.m.

At "Green Thumb"        

3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.  "Pot a Plant" 

Drip Drop

4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.  

Rippling Activities

3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.  Bird watching/ Photography. For earnest amateurs

4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.  Nature Walk

5:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.  Nature Walk

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.  Nature Walk

Run Kid Run 

3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.  Fly a Kite  

3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.  Free Wheel

Toddler Tub     

4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.  Sail a boat    

Water in the lake again!

The recent heavy rains in Bangalore have resulted in quite a bit of water finding its way into Puttenahalli Lake, quenching the thirst of the cracking lake bed. Something like a full bottle's water getting poured into one's throat, after a long harsh summer outing. 

As a part of the summer regimen, workmen have been deweeding, and a lot of the water weeds have been taken out. The green around is looking lush. 

For those who do not live in the Puttenahalli Lake vicinity, here are some recent pictures.

6-Jun-2014 Before completion of deweeding

6-Jun-2014 Deweeding in progress

​9-Jun-2014 Lake after deweeding

Pics by Nupur Jain. More pics can be seen here.

Wishing water for the lake

Sanjay M, an earnest well wisher of PNLIT sent this in an email, in reply to the post on drip irrigation.

Sanjay M http://msanjay.in
Tue, May 6, 2014

Today's welcome showers seemed to prove the saying "God helps those who help themselves" :)

Wishing those not-too-long ago good old days of the full lake are soon back and our feathered friends get back their hangout...

"Yo bro... what's up?!" ;)

"Iske feathers mere feathers se safeed, ye kaise??!" ;)

"Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. 

All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. 

Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly."

~ Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (Richard Bach)

Snaps were from a nature walk in the Puttenahalli Lake this Jan...

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2014-01-25 Nature Walk - Puttenahalli Lake76 photos

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Cheers,
Sanjay

PNLIT Drip irrigation plan

"April is the cruellest month" ... begins T.S. Eliot's classic poem. Indeed, didn't we feel it? The weather didn't change with the month and the heat continues to be relentless leading to lakes drying, shortage of water, heated roads, dripping sweat and body burning as if set on fire.        

Our added concern was the drying of the many shrubs and trees we've planted around the periphery of the lake and in our little garden. We decided to resolve this problem by implementing a drip irrigation system using a discarded plastic bottle and a stake cut from a coconut frond. We cut the bottom and pierced a tiny hole in the lid and tied it to a Pinwheel Jasmine (Tabernaemontana divaricata; Nandi Battalu in Kannada, Nandiyar in Tamil).

A couple of days of observing the trial encouraged us to replicate it to 45 more plants. Two children from South City, two from Mantri Elegance joined PNLIT volunteer Anjana in collecting plastic bottles discarded during the dry waste collection and prepared them for use. Early on Sunday morning (yesterday) we assembled and set to fixing the bottles to the stakes fixed to the ground near the shrubs by our gardener. 

In a couple of hours we were ready to test our drip irrigation bottles. Some were perfect and dripped water regularly but others leaked out of the holes that were just a little too big! Necessity is indeed the Mother of Invention and we adopted a couple of little strategies to regulate the flow to a steady drop.

An interesting fallout of this endeavour was that some regular walkers at the lake joined our team and also wanted to fix drip irrigation bottles to the shrubs and trees around the lake. We have decided do so. All visitors to the lake are welcome to bring along a bottle of water from home, empty it into our irrigation bottle and watch their favourite tree/shrub grow lush. 

Little drops of water make the ocean. One bottle of water a day will save a tree at Puttenahalli Lake. 

Usha