As much of Hyderabad reeled from localised flooding over the past week, the Musi river did not even register a blimp in the flow. From its entry into the city from the twin dams of Himayatsagar and Osmansagar till its exit near Nagole, the river did not rise despite heavy rainfall.
This stability of Musi has emboldened efforts to occupy the riverbed on both sides from Tipu Khan bridge till the Attapur bridge.
Dumping rubble
“For the past few months, we are seeing big vehicles bringing building rubble and rock debris and dumping it from the road onto the river bed. They have even brought and dumped cars on the river bed,” says Raj Reddy, who lives in Nalanda Colony and uses the Friends Colony road to travel. Serilingampally and Rajendra Nagar received some of the heaviest rainfall over the past few days. But instead of the water flowing into the river raising its level, the water accumulated in residential colonies turning them into cesspools. On Friday, Mohammad Zubair, a resident of Hydershah Kote, tweeted an image of the riverbed with encroachments.
“They dumped rocks and soil a few days ago (tipped full loads). Now they marked it with white powder to construct a compound wall. I am not sure who they are, but the corner plot which was reserved for community hall has been encroached upon. They dumped soil and rocks and levelled it with an earthmover. The encroached plot reaches the edge of the Musi river,” says Mr. Zubair.
Satellite imagery over the past two decades shows how the riverbed has been expanding at the cost of the river. In the early 2000s, the only habitation on the banks of the Musi was a clutch of villas on the southern bank near Inner Ring Road.
The road that skirts the river was a thin ribbon of asphalt, but with constant dumping, a wide pathway has opened up.
The addition of a bridge near Bapu Ghat has not only hastened movement of traffic, but has turned it into prime residential area.
“It begins in the evening. Several vehicles line up here, then they haul heavy load of rocks and building debris and tip them over into the river. Earlier, they were dumping them here (near the bridge), now they have moved further away. It goes till early hours,” says Muhammad Tahir, who runs a garage overhauling trucks near Attapur.
