One of the cascades began at Pragathi Nagar tank on Tuesday night and it flooded Yellamma Banda 1 which breached its banks and the water raced through Sai Baba Nagar colony in Kukatpally. As software engineer Sharat Kumar watched from his house in near darkness, the water first rose slowly and before he could even empty the glove compartment of the car, the flood waters reached up to the steering wheel. “The water reached up to here,” he points to the door frame of his house with high plinth
On the other side, the Allwyn Colony cheruvu brimmed over and flooded the low-lying colony and apartments. Then this raging torrent of filth, sewage and slush flooded through nallahs, open land and embankments and left citizens reeling as far as Brahmanwadi and Mayuri Marg in Begumpet. Now, there is a trail of muck and slush which the residents have begun to clean up.
“We built this house in 2006 and we never thought we will have to face this,” says Mr. Sharat pointing to the nullah behind his house where a few other houses have come up.
A 2003 map shows Yellama Kunta as one lake with a patch of dry land in the middle. A 2015 map on the other hand shows blocks of row houses. “Oh those villas were all flooded on Wednesday. The people there could not even come out of the first floor,” says Bala Swamy a resident of Jayanagar. “In 2002, a House Committee visited the spot and said construction is going on in FTL. Then we approached the High Court which ordered a stay on construction in 2011. Still the work didn’t stop and only after we filed a contempt petition in 2014 did the work stop,” says Mr. Swamy.
In another part of the city, Venelagadda Cheruvu sent water gushing through Godavari Homes and all P. Mohan Babu could do from his first floor house was click photographs to send to his children abroad.
Yellama Banda 1 and 2, Vennelagadda Cheruvu, Mothkula Kunta Cheruvu, Kotha Cheruvu, Chinnarayuni Cheruvu, Hasmathpet Cheruvu, Chemical Cheruvu and Allwyn Colony Cheruvu these and other countless lakes which never registered in people’s memories are back with a bang.
“The holding capacity of every lake has been lowered over the past few years and encroachments have reduced the spread of the lake and that is one of the main reasons for the current round of flooding,” says Lubna Sarwath of Save Our Urban Lakes.
“At Yellamma Banda the weir has been deliberately damaged to build villas and apartments. Even when the locals rebuilt it, they discovered that it was damaged the next day. This was done to reduce the lake level and to carry on constructions,” she says.
“Unless the State government acts against big encroachers, we will have to live in perpetual fear of flooding. There is a High Court demolition order against a cinema mall which is built on Patel Cheruvu but officials are not acting on it and instead focusing on the small fry encroachments on nalas,” says Ms Sarwath.
The holding capacity of every lake has been lowered over the past few years.
Lubna Sarwath,member, Save Our Urban Lakes
