Hyderabad: Though Bathukamma has been declared a Telangana state festival, Bathukammakuntla, a well-known lake between Shivam Road and Amberpet, no longer exists.
The heavily encroached 32-acre lake had vanished 25 years ago thanks to encroachers and previous governments for sitting on the issue.
Today, women from Amberpet play on the road and perform their rituals at Hussain Sagar. Earlier, when Hyderabad and Secunderabad comprised smaller villages, ladies would go to their local tanks and perform the rituals.
Bathukammakuntla is one such water body which was especially designated for the festival. The name itself, “Bathukamma” (festival of flowers) and “Kuntla” (a tank or a pond) defines the purpose.
With urbanisation and loss of rural identity, the lake slowly started diminishing.
The massively encroached lake was choked with debris, following which high rise buildings were constructed first in the buffer zone, then at the full tank level and then on the lake itself, killing it effectively.
Despite repeated representations to former governments to ensure protection of the lake and plans to build a park around it, the municipal bodies allowed land grabbers to kill the water body.
In 2010, the state government had passed an order for a comprehensive inquiry into land allotments by IAS officer Navin Mittal for allegedly regularizing buildings in contravention of law. The land at Bathukammakuntla was said to have been sold at a price of '30 crore. However, this inquiry only remained on paper and no action was initiated.
The area also suffers from water-logging, a regular feature every monsoon and so far, the Greater Hyderabad Muncipal Corporation has not found a way to fix the problem.
