The State council of Communist Party of India has urged the State government to take steps to restore lakes and tanks in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation jurisdiction that have been encroached.
CPI State secretary Chada Venkat Reddy expressed concern over the rampancy of the encroachments that are leading to ecological imbalance and said it is the responsibility of the government to protect them. In all, close to 400 lakes and tanks were handed over to the GHMC by the Irrigation Department in 2010, but no steps have been initiated to ensure vacation of encroachers, he said.
In a letter addressed to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Mr. Venkat Reddy recalled that the Chief Minister during an all-party meeting in December 2014 expressed concern that government lands were subject to encroachments as was evident from the real estate deals. The government has taken up land record updation programme in spite of several hurdles, but there are no efforts being made to protect these encroached water bodies, he said.
He cited the example of Devunikunta tank in Vijayanagar colony of the city and said the indiscriminate encroachments continued with the support of the ruling party leaders even after the formation of the State.
He demanded that the government constitute special teams with GHMC and police officials to restore the encroached water bodies.
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