A major component in the efforts to rejuvenate the Musi river along the lines of the River Thames in London invariably involves dealing with the former’s dirty water, blackened by human and industrial waste.
The project to revitalise the Musi and develop its surroundings includes the installation of a host of new sewage treatment plants (STPs) along the river’s 55-km stretch between Narsingi to the west and Gowrelli to the east.
According to highly placed officials, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has sanctioned 39 more STPs under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme, and these plants will be used in the Musi Riverfront Development project.
These will be in addition to the 31 STPs sanctioned by the previous government in the State and being established on the catchments of the Musi and the Hussainsagar lake. Four of these STPs have already begun to function, and the remaining are in various stages of completion.
The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) will be the implementation authority for the STP component of the project, for which it needs to develop an interceptor network all along the river to divert the sewage into the STPs.
An area of 50 metres on either side of the river will be declared as the utility zone to lay the pipeline network.
One more proposal to ensure fresh water flow in the river entails pumping water from the Godavari river into the Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar reservoirs. Taking a leaf out of the previous regime’s book, the incumbent government is mulling release of small quantities of water from the heritage twin reservoirs into the Musi to maintain the flow of cleaner water. Doing so will also amount to linking of Krishna and Godavari rivers, the officials noted.
