The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is embarking on another round of survey of the stormwater drains in the city, to enumerate the encroachments which have to be removed, to widen the streams to their original glory.
Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development K.T.Rama Rao has reportedly issued instructions during a recent review meeting, to conduct such a survey in all the six zones and submit reports.
As per instructions, the zonal commissioners will have to select a major drain in their jurisdiction and carry out the survey. They will need to collect and summarise details such as the length of the drain, number of encroachments, size of each encroachment, socio-economic profile of the occupants and need for rehabilitation, besides determining whether the encroachers may be provided housing units under the double-bedroom housing scheme of the Telangana government.
The survey is to be carried out with participation of all the departments concerned, including Town Planning, Irrigation, Revenue and Planning.
“The government is looking at the possibility of clearing all encroachments to provide free passage of water, thereby preventing flooding. Rehabilitation package may be determined for the eligible poor,” revealed an official.
Two reports, respectively by Kirloskar and Voyants committees, already exist about the encroachment of stormwater drains in the city, due to which successive floods have taken place. However, officials said, there were parts of drains which were excluded from the earlier surveys due to political pressure. Musheerabad is one such area which hosts the surplus drain of the Hussainsagar.
Not all encroachments are by the economically-deprived, as vouched by apartment complexes and schools that have come up right on the drains which carry flood water from one lake to the other.
The city had experienced major flooding in October last year, when torrential rains demolished lake bunds, breached drains, flooded hundreds of colonies and resulted in the death of over 50 persons. Though last year’s was an exceptional occurrence with record rainfall, a miniature instance of such disaster is in waiting every year when there is copious amount of monsoon rains, necessitating a permanent solution to the problem.
