Good rainfall in the last few days has breathed life into the famous Kuntala waterfall in Adilabad district with Sunday being the day when it received its first proper inflow of the season. The rain has helped in bringing back the beauty of the place beckoning many a visitor.
Lack of facilities at the waterfall, however, is a deterrent for people as they hardly stay beyond two hours at the picturesque spot. The place has remained a picnic spot instead of being a major tourist destination.
The waterfall, largest in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, is located amid the scenic forest in Neredigonda mandal that attracts visitors largely from Hyderabad, Nizamabad and Karimnagar. It is about 42 km away from Nirmal district headquarter town and 57 km away from Adilabad district headquarter town and has good road connectivity.
“The place has a great potential to be made into a tourist spot,” opined P. Shreyas Reddy of Hyderabad, who is a student of Architecture in Manipal. “The waterfall and its surroundings are no less than tourist places in northeast,” he asserted to buttress his point that the environmental haven has sufficient scope for development.
“There are no guides or toilets. We are unaware of the nuances of the flow in the stream,” lamented Ravi Deep, a Ph.D scholar from ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad, as he pointed out certain lacunae which need to be plugged.
“The place can be developed as a resort and provide trained guides for assistance in addition to security for visitors. In fact, Kuntala can have outlets for Nirmal toys and paintings and even showcase programmes on local culture,” suggested Shreyas Reddy, who was so enamoured by the spread of nature that he wants to do his study paper on tourism development here.
Development of Kuntala as a tourist spot has not received sufficient push from the government. In fact, it is sitting on a proposal for over a year for establishment of a restaurant and a guesthouse on the hill top by the Telangana State Tourism Department.
There is no initiative either to make the place safe for visitors. However, Forest and Environment Minister Jogu Ramanna is said to be keen on filling up of the crevices on the rocky bed of the pool at the foot of the first fall which account for most of the drowning deaths.
