Bengaluru's incessant rains have given a harsh reality check to millions of citizens, who are now demanding answers to their concerns, but the biggest of them all — is who's at fault? The political blame game is taking its usual course whereas the term Rajakaluve kept getting passed around in heated debates. If you're not sure of what Rajakaluve means, read all about it here.
Rajakaluve is an important and quite significant historic achievement and it dates back to long before Bengaluru was even on the global map, let alone it being called the Silicon Valley of India. But the Rajakaluve system was designed in such a way that all the lakes in the city were interconnected in such a way that if one lake overflowed, Rajakaluve would automatically reroute the excess water to another lake and so on.
The current flood-like situation in Bengaluru has put illegal encroachment of land on Rajakaluve in the spotlight. Due to the illegal construction of storm-water drains, the rainwater cannot take its designed route, which results in flooding. It's not that the entire city is sinking, but in fact, the zones that have seen illegal encroachments suffer from water logging. Mahadevpura is an example of that in the current situation.
Is your property on Rajakaluve?
Now, if you're concerned that your property or your home stands tall on Rajakaluve, there's a way to find out. BBMP, Bengaluru's civic body, in collaboration with IIMB-RERI launched a web portal several years ago to show properties that are encroaching.
The properties are divided into four categories, red is for a property on Rajakaluve and notified, orange is for not yet notified as encroaching, grey is for status unclear, and green is listed as non-encroaching. In order to avail of the service, you'll need to have the survey number, village and taluka details as per the schedule in the registration document. Alternatively, you can locate property using BBMP Rajakaluve map online.
