Encroachment razing breathes new life into Mir Alam Tank

Encroachments on the south western side of the lake removed

Concrete periphery: An aerial view of the area surrounding the Mir Alam Tank.

There is a ray of hope for the shrinking and stinking Mir Alam Tank. The civic body has razed a few encroachments on the south western side of the lake over the past few days.

The area resembles a war zone with twisted metal scaffoldings, collapsed concrete beams, heaps of bricks and mountains of plastic, lining the mud road leading to the one-walled portion of the lake.

Multiple issues

For a lake that has faced multiple assaults with dumping of building debris, release of toxic effluents and encroachments from all sides leading to shrinking in size, this is indeed a welcome development.

“During monsoon, the lake water used to reach the road. The FTL should be there, but it has not been demarcated. Our fencing and area is clear but the surrounding areas have been gradually occupied,” says an employee of the Sewage Treatment Plant built on the banks of the lake.

Foul smell

Foul smelling dark sewage water flows into the 10-mld STP and dribbles out as fairly clean water. The dark water is measured as having 70 Hazen (a unit which measures the concentration of dissolved and particulate matter) before treatment and 10 Hazen after treatment. But the lake is covered with a thick blanket of water hyacinth and in shallower areas grass.

The Nehru Zoological Park, which abuts the lake, procures water from other sources. It doesn’t use the lake water for taking care of its animals due to the toxicity.

“This tank had an original water spread area of about 400 acres and part of it has already been encroached by various slums around the water body. As per the Dy Collector & Tahsildar – Rajendra Nagar Mandal, the FTL (Full Tank Level) pillars are not fixed and HMDA installed grill fencing around the lake without marking FTL and water spread, due to which land grabbers are encroaching upon the commons,” says the letter written by Save Our Urban Lakes (SOUL) in October 2013.

Nearly six years later, the civic body acted razing a portion of the encroachments. Much of the shoreline has been transformed into pit stops for trucks, plastic manufacturing units, workshops and welding units.

“The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has laid a road cutting the lake into two parts. The 2014 FTL map is there but is being ignored. Unless the lake is cleared of encroachments and is deepened the surrounding areas of Hassan Nagar, Sulaiman Nagar and other areas will get flooded. The main Bahadurpura road gets blocked for hours due to flooding,” says Lubna Sarwath of SOUL.

“It is a good beginning, but we expect more. The water body should be restored to the maximum original area, the water quality should be improved by releasing only treated water and increasing the water holding capacity of the lake which has shrunk due to silt and deposit of debris,” says Ms. Sarwath.

As the civic body has managed to bring down several structures encroaching on the lake bed, it remains to be seen how it tackles those who have turned the once pristine lake into a garbage bin and a construction site.