Though the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) has started works to lay a pipeline to divert the Kukatpally nala from flowing into Hussainsagar lake, about 10 per cent of the sewage may still flow into the 400-year-old lake, said a senior official, who declined to be identified.
Orders for the works were given by the Telangana government a few days ago, for which the HMWSSB has taken permission from the Traffic Police, due to which the Tank Bund road will be inaccessible till May 31 and traffic will be diverted.
More than 400 million litres per day (MLD) of sewage, mostly industrial effluents, flows into the Hussainsagar Lake from the Kukatpally and Jeedimetla nalas every day. The project to divert these effluents was started about 20 days ago, and will be completed in three months, at a cost of nearly Rs.59 crore, said M. Konda Reddy, Director (Project).
The pipeline laying work is being taken up much before the monsoon arrived, he pointed out, while explaining that a 650 metre (length) and 1,600 millimetre (mm) diameter pipeline were being laid from the Prakashnagar Intercept and Diversion (IND) structure to the P.V. Ghat.
In the second package, a 1,000 metre pipeline, 2,200 mm in diameter, would be laid from the P.V. Ghat till the GHMC Herbal Park. Package-3 would have a pipeline of the same length and diameter from the park to Buddha Bhavan. And a final 200 metre pipeline would be laid from Buddha Bhavan till near Marriott Hotel.
Works on Package-1 began about 20 days ago, and HMWSSB officials said that the crucial part of Package-4 was to connect the pipeline. “The work is big because there is the Kalasiguda nala near Buddha Bhavan, which is quite big. So it will be tough to do during the rainy season,” said the senior official.