Hyderabad: People travelling to and from Kukatpally, Quthbullapur, LB Nagar, Uppal, Dilsukhnagar are in for a hard time as the Water and Sewerage Board has sought permission from the GHMC to dig 2,500 km of roads to strengthen the water supply distribution network in the peripheral circles of GHMC. The process, if it goes on schedule, will take 6 months.
GHMC commissioner Dr B. Janardhan Reddy said, the Water Board had sought permission for digging 2,500 km of roads to lay water distribution pipelines in Alwal, Quthbullapur, Kukatpally, Kapra, Serilingampally, Uppal, Rajendra Nagar, LB Nagar, Gaddiannaram, Ramachandrapuram and Patancheru at a cost of around Rs 1,900 crore.
“We have compelling reasons to give road cutting permissions to departments like HMWS&SB, Southern Power Distribution Company of Telangana, private telecom agencies for laying underground cable lines as it is the need of the hour for the city,” he said.
2 lakh houses built on nalas
Over two lakh houses have been built on 3,890 km of nalas in the city. This is blocking the flow of stormwater into the nalas, and turning roads into drains when it rains. After the floods in the year 2000, 558 illegal properties along nalas had been removed.
The remaining 1,556 could not be demolished due to political pressure. The GHMC has identified encroachments at 28,000 sites, said GHMC commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy.
He said the GHMC was contemplating handing over the maintenance for stormwater drains to the Water and Sewerage Board. The city’s nala system is unable to cope with modern-day pressures and the state government is unable to spend Rs 10,000 crore required to revive the system and remove encroachments.
The main reasons for waterlogging in the city are that the number of stormwater drains are insufficient; there is no comprehensive stormwater drain network; and similar other reasons.
