A Division Bench of the High Court comprising acting Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and Justice Vilas Afzulpurkar on Thursday indicated that it would like to constitute a committee for removal of illegal structures and protection of two drinking water lakes in the city.
It was made clear that the court will not allow any dilution of GO Ms. No.111 which has been issued for protecting the two drinking water lakes Himayatsagar, Osmansagar. The Bench was dealing with two separate writ petitions filed by S. Jevananda Reddy and Forum for a Better Hyderabad through Mr. Veda Kumar.
Task force
The Bench was informed by the government that a Lake Protection Committee had been formed and a task force had been established, and that it was taking all steps to protect lakes.
The counsel for the petitioners complained that even recently farm houses are encroaching upon the catchment area and the building spree is continuing.
A private party which wanted to set up a software park in Vatti Nagulapalli claimed that a study disclosed that some part of the village is not in the catchment area and hence they may be deleted from the purview of GO Ms. No.111.
This G.O. was issued by the State government in the year 1996 prohibiting polluting activity and huge constructions and any other activity which prevents water flows to the lakes.
Studies submitted
The petitioners placed scientific studies before the court to show that inflows have reduced due to construction activity. The status reports filed by the officers disclosed illegal buildings and unauthorised layouts.
The Bench said “enough is enough” and was not satisfied about the formation of committees.
The Bench said that it is ‘high time we preserve the drinking water source in these hard times.’
It adjourned the matter to Monday so that the counsels could suggest names of those who could be in the committee to oversee removal of illegal structures and preservation of the lakes.
