The recently renovated ₹ 20-crore Hussainsagar Lake promenade suffered minimal damage despite thousands of Ganesh idols being immersed into the lake from the 12 cranes deployed for the occasion. On Tuesday morning, civic workers began hosing down the flamed granite pavement after another group of civic workers cleaned the trash left by revellers on Sunday and Monday. “The amount of trash in water is just half of what we have removed. We have been asked to clean up this place as more people are visiting now,” said Prakashi, a sanitary worker who was moved from Sanjeeviah Park to clean up the Tank Bund area.
Unlike earlier years where the Tank Bund would remain unusable for a few days due to the rotting festival debris scattered everywhere, the pavement has been swept clean within hours. The use of 150-mm cobblestones in sections where cranes were deployed ensured that the surface remained undamaged despite deployment of 40-tonne cranes and the movement of thousands of devotees and visitors. Strategic placement of sandbags, logs of wood, and planned placement of electrical fixtures led to minimal damage to the surface. The only relics of the event were bits of coir fibre and remnants of gypsum sticking to the cobblestones.
The cast iron railings also remained unaffected as a protective railings were tied to them to prevent damage. At places, the civic body erected protective netting to prevent people from throwing trash into the lake. But the full stretch of Tank Bund did not have the high protective netting. The result: Many families and individuals stopped the vehicles and threw plastic packets filled with religious paraphernalia.
To clean the trash from the lake, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority is using floating trash collectors. “We are spraying this for bio-remediation. The plant and floral offerings decay and release a bad odour. This will ensure that algal growth is curtailed and foul smell doesn’t increase over the next few days,” informed Mahender, as a civic worker sprayed a clear liquid into the lake on the Necklace Road side. The taller idols, including the Khairatabad Ganesh idols, were immersed in the lake on the Necklace Road side. Unlike the Tank Bund promenade, the railings on the Necklace Road were damaged due to the cranes and other heavy machinery.
