Metro India News | Hyderabad 

Forum for Good Governance president M. Padmanabha Reddy wrote a letter to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy urging him to take immediate action to cleaning Hussain Sagar Lake as a part of Rejuvenation of Musi River.

M. Padmanabha Reddy, in his letter, stated that one of the land marks of Hyderabad city is Hussain Sagar. Built originally for drinking water source over the years was neglected and become polluted with the entry of untreated sewerage and industrial effluents through Nalas like Banjara Nala, Picket Nala, Balkapur Nala and Kukatpally Nala. The first three Nalas carry sewage while the Kukatpally Nala carry dangerous chemicals from Balanagar industrial area and drain into Hussain Sagar.

He said the HMDA in 2006 has taken up a project titled “Hussain Sagar lake and catchment area improvement project (H.C.I.P.) with a loan of Rs 310 crore from Japan International Co-operative Agency (JICA) and State Government grant of Rs 60 crore totalling Rs 370 crore.

The project envisages to improve the lake water; to maintain round the year water balance in the lake; removal of nutrient rich sediments from lake bed; improvement of Nalas draining to into lake; to improve the overall lake environment and its surroundings for enriched biodiversity; increasing the potentiality of Eco–Tourism.

He said the project started in 2006 to be completed by 2013. But, due to various reasons, the project did not achieve any of the stated objectives though Rs 370 crore were spent. A good amount of money was spent for study tours of our officers to Japan and other European countries and experts from Japan to advise our officials cost much for their consultancy and travel expenses.

Since Kukatpally Nala was identified as a serious threat as a temporary measure, it was planned to divert Kukatpally Nala with an estimated cost of Rs 50 crore, though allocated money was spent without much result as the Nala carrying dangerous chemicals still flowing into Hussain Sagar lake.  Then came the Buddapurnina project with an estimated cost of Rs 20 crore. The work involved is to remove the floating material like water Hyasinth and other plastic material. After spending Rs 20 crore, Buddapurnima project was bended.

Another estimate was prepared for dredging the sediments from lake bed with an estimated cost of Rs 500 crore. This effort also did not succeed as there was no advance planning regarding dumping of sediment containing dangerous chemicals. In this way so far, an amount of Rs 500 crore were spent during last 20 years to clean Hussain Sagar without success. Lack of proper planning and corruption has affected the project badly.  Since last five years there is no activity on lake improvement.

Chief Minister is committed to improve and rejuvenate Musi river.  Forum for Good Governance appreciates the efforts being made by the Chief Minister. In this connection, we submitted that the polluted water from Hussain Sagar flows into Musi river, any attempt to rejuvenate Musi river without cleaning Hussain Sagar will not give the desired results.   Rejuvenation of Musi river should include cleaning of Hussain Sagar also. Forum for Good Governance requests the Chief Minister to address the issue of cleaning the Hussain Sagar lake as an integrate part of Musi rejuvenation and works should start simultaneous. .