All that is white is not pure and pristine...

All that is white is not pure and pristine...

White is the colour of  the pristine snow… 

But in Bangalore you never really know ..

Here white is the colour of the Toxic waste

Untreated sewage discharged into the lake.

This pristine white foam  that greets  the residents of lake view apartments during their morning walk hides a darker truth--it is the toxic waste . The  foam frothing from the  outlets of the streams that join the Vartur lake in Whitefield, Bangalore  is a result of the water in the lake having high content of ammonia and phosphate and very low dissolved oxygen. Sewage from many parts of the city is released into the lake, leaving it extremely polluted.  

The man from Bangalore Municipal Corporation is seen spraying something possibly to quell the foam so that it does not froth and pour over into the bridge. There is only so much he could do .  

With Builders encroaching land near the lake to build' lake-view' apartments for their 'up market' customers in lands with dubious records of title ownership ( lands adjoining 300 metres from the lake are not supposed to be fit for construction). Clearly some cash or kind must have moved hands sometime somewhere before these upmarket apartments came up on this lake shore.  there. 

The Municipality has no obligation to provide for sewage pipes or reat the sewage as these are encroachers . Upmarket encroachers.    It is thus that the sewage from about 100,000 and more households of high rise buildings is let into the  small stream that flows into the now diminishing Vartur lake. When it is monsoon time the lake overflows with not only rain water but with untreated sewage.  High levels of E-coli bacteria found in untreated sewage percolates the groundwater table and causes waterborne diseases.  

Hence we treat our tap water with massive amounts of chlorine and purify them via purifiers.  

We cannot take chances with what we drink, so we buy our drinking water from branded water manufacturers.

Around our vicinity are leading hospitals with 24/7 emergency care who provide excellent medical care to their  patients.  

Our employers provide us with generous  health insurance benefits to mitigate  the risk of high costs incurred due to hospitalization.

The hospitals, The water tankers, those who brand our drinking water, the real estate developers and the presumably happy residents of the up-market lake view high rise apartments...

Economically speaking everyone wins... it is a win win situation. 

It is always Economy over ecology.  

It is besides the point that the residents never open their windows because there is no fresh air.

The unbearable stench of the frothing lake forces them to keep their french windows shut.  

Was it Winston Churchill who said behind 'every great development lies a dark crime committed way down in history' or some such thing …