The Telangana High Court on Friday instructed Nirmal Collector and Municipal Commissioner to prepare a blueprint for prevention of encroachment on lakes in the district.
After hearing a PIL petition on encroachment on lakes in Nirmal district and town, a bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy directed the authorities to explain how they were going to check encroachments in the future. The bench also instructed the Collector and the Commissioner to file a fresh affidavit on how they would link different streams and nalas and ensure that they were not encroached upon.
When the hearing began, the bench took exception to the officials failing to remove illegal constructions on the buffer zone and Full Tank Level (FTL) areas of the lakes in the district. With government counsel for municipalities seeking time to “immediately remove encroachments”, the CJ sought to know what he meant by “immediate”.
The CJ reminded counsel that HC had passed an order nearly six months ago to remove illegal structures on the lakes. “Are six months not adequate to clear encroachments? What is your criteria for immediate?” the CJ asked counsel. The bench wondered how, with monsoon rains to begin in a week or so, the authorities would undertake encroachment removal work.
When counsel said the authorities were facing problem of inadequate staff, the CJ asked him why they could not engage contract workers. The CJ made it clear to counsel that officials could not take the excuse of pandemic to explain the delay in clearing illegal structures on the lakes.
The bench found fault with the Collector for not constituting a lake protection committee to monitor work relating to razing down illegal structures in the vicinity of lakes. The petitioner’s lawyer Chinnolla Naresh Reddy told the court that construction of a temple was undertaken in the vicinity of a lake when the matter came up for hearing.
The inaction of the authorities over past six months resulted in installation of an idol in the temple. When the CJ wanted an explanation on the point, the Collector responded stating that he would personally visit the place, inviting the wrath of the court. The Collector explained that authorities could not completely focus on the work due to frequent communal tension in Bhainsa town of the district where curfew was clamped for over 45 days.
He sought two months to fence all the six lakes where illegal structures were coming up and clear all unauthorised structures there. The matter was posted for July 29.
