Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake also called Yele Mallappa Chetty Lake, is one of the largest lakes in Bangalore, located on the eastern side of the city, outside of KR Puram. It is an artificial water reservoir constructed in early 1900s.[1] The lake is spread over 105.218 ha (260.0 acres) of land, it was considered to be a beautiful ecosystem.[2]

Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake
Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake in 2019 winter time
Location	Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Coordinates	13°01′24.6″N 77°43′45.2″E
Type	Stale water
Native name	ಎಲೆ ಮಲ್ಲಪ್ಪ ಶೆಟ್ಟಿ ಕೆರೆ (Kannada)
Primary inflows	Rainfall and city drainage
Catchment area	2.87 km2 (1.1 sq mi)
Basin countries	India
Surface area	105.218 ha (260.0 acres)
Shore length1	3 km (1.9 mi)
Surface elevation	903.26 m (2,963.5 ft)
Frozen	Never
Settlements	Bangalore
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Geography

Yele Mallappa Shetty lake is located in North-East Bangalore, near Whitefield. The 260 acre Yele Mallappa Shetty lake is one of the largest lakes in Bangalore. The lake has the Old Madras Road passing through it.[3]

History

Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake derives its name from a leading philanthropist of 1900s by the name of Rai Bahadur Yele Mallappa Shetty. In the late 19th century when the city was suffering from a great drought, Yele Mallappa Shetty, a betel leaf merchant, generously donated a large part of his wealth to the construction of a tank to harvest rainwater and provide respite to the people.[4][1]

Flora and fauna

The lake is a biological hotspot for migratory birds, some of the usually spotted birds are golden oriole, northern shoveler, Asian green bee-eater, bulbul, pied kingfisher, egrets, and Eurasian coot.[5]

Water quality

In 2015, University of Mysore had conducted a study and published the report of Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake. As part of Physico-chemical characteristics of Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake, The observations were made three times in a year representing three different seasons. The samples were collected from three different places of the lake.[6]

Following are the observations from the report:

• Physico-chemical analysis: Lake water contains different types of floating, dissolved, suspended and microbiological as well as bacteriological impurities.
• Temperature: Neither too high nor too low.
• pH: Normal range.
• Electrical Conductivity (EC): Higher side; indicating higher levels of alkalinity.
• Dissolved oxygen (DO): Lower than the standard.
• Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD): Moderate.
• Chemical oxygen demand (COD): Exceeded the limit in most of the samples. It clearly indicates the presence of high levels of dissolved contaminants.
• Hardness: Very high.
• Alkalinity: Higher side.
• Sodium: Concentration of sodium was found to be lower.
• Potassium: The concentration of potassium was high.
• Phosphate: Comparatively high amount of phosphate was recorded due to the discharge of municipality sewage and dumping of domestic waste into the lakes.
• Nitrate: Relatively larger amount of nitrate was found.

Impact of urbanization

Due to rapid growth of Bangalore urban area, Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake has been getting encroached over the time. The multi-storey apartments in its watershed region, which are constantly feeding stormwater drains completely but are also letting untreated sewage directly into it. Even industries from surrounding areas started dumping their waste into the lake.[7][8]

Sewage treatment plant

On 23 December 2017, Bengaluru Development Minister K J George Inaugurated the Yele Mallappa Shetty treatment plant at Seegehalli, the Sewage Treatment Plant is built to help treat 15 million litres of sewage water per day (MLD) generated at KR Puram, Hoodi, Mahadevapura, Bhattarahalli, Devasandra, Sadaramangala and Medhalli.[9]

Currently, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board supplies treated sewage to neighboring regions such as Chikkaballapur, Kolar and Anekal for irrigation purpose.[2]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake.