The western part of Hyderabad is booming with buildings, flyovers, shopping malls, apartment blocks and restaurants popping up with surprising regularity. One of the hottest property destinations is the Biodiversity Junction where an apartment retails for between ₹ 2 crore and ₹ 3.5 crore. At this hotspot of realty, the Khajaguda Lake, which borders the Biodiversity Junction, is set to become history.
“The lake bed is being encroached upon by builders. When I visited the site a few days ago, they were filling up the lake with earth-movers. We have written letters to all the top officials of the State, including the district collector, GHMC commissioner and Lake Protection Committee. We have detailed the illegal activities, including quarrying and filling,” says Lubna Sarwath of Save Our Urban Lakes.
The lake that used to lap the Old Bombay Highway has receded, with many buildings coming up on its northern side. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s social fencing, which involved filling up about five metres on the lake border, has not helped protect the lake as earth-movers have breached the pathway to dump debris in the middle of the lake. “We don’t know who is dumping the debris and why are they filling up the lake,” said an employee of a 7MLD sewage treatment plant built inside the lake. The STP is one of the few functional ones in the city, but the water in the lake was dark green with a foul odour. Satellite images show how the lake has been slowly disappearing as the urban sprawl has spread. “We noticed the lake filling activity in the weir (outflow channel) area. The outflow channel is now a narrow one in comparison to the earlier outlet. How they are allowing buildings to come up in the Full Tank Level (FTL) limits is a mystery,” says Ms. Sarwath.
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The disappearing lake was one of the reasons why parts of the city were marooned during an urban flooding event. On October 2, 2017, when sudden rains led to flooding in many parts of the city, the Biodiversity Junction was one of the worst affected with cars floating in some areas. Later, the civic officials blamed clogged sewerage system for the flooding. But the reduction in the holding capacity of the lake was one of the critical factors too. As the lake shrinks further, it remains to be seen how it affects urban ecology in the area.