Cyberabad under seige, as Naidu passes the buck

Cyberabad under seige, as Naidu passes the buck
G S VASU

HYDERABAD, AUG 28: It's time N Chandrababu Naidu stopped blaming the Meteorological Department for the way his Cyberabad fell apart under 72 hours of rain. According to experts, the disaster was partly man-made because the main culprits of this story are massive encroachments and abysmal water-storage facilities in the city.

The result was that as many as 100 residential colonies in Hyderabad were completely submerged, one lakh citizens badly affected and property worth crores of rupees lost. Most of the affected colonies either lie in low-lying areas, tank beds itself or along the flood flow channel of the Hussainsagar lake.

``The disaster has been in the making since many years thanks to the skewed government policies vis-a-vis urban development,'' says environmentalist K. Purushottam Reddy. The civic bodies -- the Municipal Corporation or the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority -- have failed to ensure planned development.''

If the storage capacity of Hussainsagar reservoir, built in 1562, has itself shrunk by at least 50 per cent over the years, lakes have vanished in hundreds. There were as many as 530 water bodies in and around Hyderabad at one time, giving it the sobriquet `The City of Lakes', but hardly 150 are seen now. Masab Tank, Talab Katta and Yousufguda are totally gone thanks to urbanisation and growing housing needs, while tank beds at Saroornagar, Mir Alam, Ramanthapur, Safilguda, Malkajgiri and Ramakrishnapuram are occupied.

According to Reddy, haphazard developmental plans have destroyed the natural channels of water flow as well as the flood-control infrastructure created by the Nizam and other rulers in the past. The catchment area, lake bed, inlet and outlet streams of every water body, including Hussainsagar, have been encroached upon.

D Narsimha Reddy of the Centre for Resource Education points out that ``The flooding of posh residential colonies in the heart of the city is basically due to the reduction in the water-storage capacity. Thanks to the slums which have been allowed to come up and the government's own projects -- Necklace Road, Lumbini Park and Buddha Purnima Road -- the area of the Hussainsagar lake has shrunk drastically.

Therefore, when there were sudden inflows, the officials just lifted the gates and let out the water.''

Reddy points out that in the past there was a chain link of lakes in the upstream of Hussainsagar that helped prevent sudden flooding. ``Water used to flow from one lake to the other before reaching Husssinsagar. But as most of the lakes in the upstream are now destroyed, the water reached the Sagar directly and caused the flooding,'' he says.

Interestingly, CM Naidu himself seems to realise the drawback of haphazard urban development. ``All the damage caused was because of the construction of huge residential complexes along the flood-flow channel of Hussainsagar. Over a period, the channel has become narrow affecting the flow,'' he told the Assembly today.

The one lakh people who have lost their belongings in Hyderabad wish the realisation had dawned earlier.