Bondval lake, Bambolim

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Bondval lake is a man made lake situated on the hills Bambolim. The formation of the lake was due to construction of a huge mud retaining wall on one side. During monsoon the lake gets filled up and gradually dries out during summer. The water in the lake is not yet tapped for beneficial purpose. The lake is inaccessible and has a difficult pathway through wild growth from the rear side of Shantadurga Temple at Santa Cruz.The plan to acquire the 105-year-old Bondvoll Lake of the Portuguese era in St Cruz has met an obstacle as the town and country planning (TCP) department has rejected the proposal but given no reason.

Water resources minister Dayanand Mandrekar told St Cruz MLA Atanasio Babush Monserrate in reply to his starred question that the proposal had been referred to the TCP to obtain a no objection certificate (NOC) for acquisition of land, but it was rejected.

"The Bondvoll Lake continues to be in the possession of the communidade of Calapor and tenants," the minister stated in his reply.
A village-level committee revising the draft regional plan 2021 had suggested four years ago that the lake area be declared a heritage landscape and the settlement area marked around it be kept as open space.
A tenant who was tilling 550 sq m on the lake's water bed had been declared 'deemed purchaser' by the mamlatdar of the entire property, though there were 26 tenants earlier.The villagers had demanded at previous Gram-Sabha that the water body be protected. They had also opposed a housing project of 133 flats in an area of 33,478 sq m on a slope with a steep gradient in the lake's vicinity. An allegation that the mamlatdar declaring a single person with an area of 550 sq m as a tenant there had complicated the issue.The dam with a catchment area of 874.375 hectares rises 18m high on the slope of the hill and extends 200m in length and has a width of around 80m. The earthern dam built by the Portuguese regime in 1910 has a storage capacity of 10 lakh cubic m and irrigates an area of about 12 lakh sq m, benefitting more than 500 farmers.