The massive exercise undertaken by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to survey the existing storm water drains (nalas) in the city and outskirts and identify its obstructions was finally completed.
The five-month survey was carried out for 173 storm water drains over a total length of 390 kms. Soon after parts of the city was swamped and flooded in September last year, the State government had taken a decision to take up the survey. A number of teams, consisting of GHMC and revenue officials, identified 12,182 unauthorised constructions along the storm water drains through the survey.
Many encroachments
North Zone recorded the highest number of unauthorised constructions. With 37 major storm water drains in the zone spread over 89.40 kilometers length, 4030 unauthorised structures were identified. The Central Zone with the presence of 39 storm water drains and length of 102.54 kms was found to have 2809 unauthorized constructions.
While the West Zone with 41 storm water drains had 2684 unauthorized constructions, the South Zone with 32 storm water drains recorded 1810 unauthorized constructions. In East Zone, there were 849 illegal structures over 44 kms covering 24 storm water drains.
The teams also used unconventional methods for accuracy. Drone cameras were used for aerial surveys and video-documenting the areas by utilizing the GPS systems. The Geographical Information System (GIS) wing of the GHMC was actively involved in the exercise.
The State government had halted its demolitions drives of unauthorised structures that had come up along water bodies and storm water drains citing the survey. According to the senior officials of GHMC, though the survey has been completed no decision has been taken regarding the demolitions.
GHMC Mayor, B. Rammohan said that the survey had been taken up to safeguard the lives of the citizens and to ensure that inundation of low lying areas as a result of heavy rains does not recur.
