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. The lake is spread over of land, it was considered to be a beautiful ecosystem.
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.
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.
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. 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.
Chemical oxygen demand : 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.
