The last hurdle has been cleared for notifying Ameenpur lake a biodiversity heritage site on Monday, as 28 written petitions by various stakeholders were disposed of at a public hearing in Ameenpur Gram Panchayat office. A preliminary notification was issued on June 18.
The hearing was conducted by Telangana State Biodiversity Board and Biodiversity Management Committee in the presence of district officials.
“The next step is gazette notification under Section 37 of Biological Diversity Act, 2002, by the Telangana government, which is a mere formality now,” said C. Suvarna, member secretary, Telangana Biodiversity Board.
“It will lead to creation of an empowered Biodiversity Management Committee comprising locals who can decide how to take care of the lake. The committee can even take legal recourse against erring parties,” said Retd. IFS officer Shankaran, who was part of the panel of public hearing.
As people from the village occupied every inch of the space near the GP office, some of them raised issues about pollution from nearby industries. “There is a bottling plant and there is a pharmaceutical unit, but no government official is willing to act against them. They are releasing pollutants into the lake. I used to drink water from the lake until 15 years ago. Now, the villagers don’t even eat fish caught in the lake,” said R. Swamy of the village.
IPS officer Tejdeep Kaur Menon, who has been leading a campaign to save the lake, targeted pollution board officials. “You people are telling bare faced lies when you say that there is no dumping of industrial effluents in the lake. This summer, a large quantity of fish died and floated up in the lake, and it is due to toxic inflows from industries,” said Ms. Menon, picking on Bhikshapathi, EE of Telangana State Pollution Control Board.
While much of the meeting was conducted in a civil manner, tempers flared when some fishermen raised the issue of fishing in the lake, blasting of rocks on the lake’s edge and the status of full-tank level. The notification will be one small step in saving a part of the historic lake from land sharks who have encroached and reduced it from 300-odd acres to 93.15 acres.
