The Malkam Cheruvu looks like a construction site with piles of iron bars, heaps of sand and concrete mixers. The water of the lake, which used to lap the road a few years ago, now begins at a distance of about 100 metres from the road. “The entrance plaza is being constructed by Aparna Constructions while the walkway is being laid by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. We are also constructing two sewerage treatment plants,” says a senior GHMC official about the lake which abuts the Old Bombay Highway.
“The entrance plaza will have guard rooms on either side of the entrance,” said an official supervising the construction at the site where massive concrete columns have been raised on the lake bed.
Most of the lake bed has already been filled with construction debris and earthen work is going on at a frenetic pace. Ironically, only a few months ago, the GHMC constructed a mini immersion pond for Ganesh idols spending about ₹55 lakh.
“Once all the construction activity and land filling activity is over, there will be no lake left. We have lost half of the lake within the last two years. When we protested, they put up a banner saying: ‘Restoration & Comprehensive Development of Malkam Cheruvu’. But all of it is a sham. It is just land grab,” said Lubna Sarwath of Save Our Urban Lakes, who has carried out a campaign to get the work stopped.
The shrinkage of the lake is starkly evident when satellite maps are compared over the past dozen years.
A 2003 satellite image shows the spread of the lake with the current road that leads to a residential colony at least five metres inside the lake. A February 2, 2010 image shows the lake touching the Old Bombay Highway. A 2014 shows similar lake boundaries. In contrast, a May 2017 satellite image shows the size of the mini pond and how much of the lake has been turned into real estate.
The Malkam Cheruvu gets the spillover water from the Durgam Cheruvu.
But with the storage capacity of the lake shrinking due to massive earthen work, it was one of the crisis zone during the October 2017 flooding where the whole of Gachibowli area was cut off due to rain water. It remains to be seen how this new construction activity on the lake shrinking it further will impact the neighbourhood.
