Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to demolish illegal buildings, especially those that prevent free flow of rain water, in East Anandbagh, Malkajgiri, in order to permanently prevent inundation of vulnerable areas.
In the first phase, the GHMC has identified about 50 such structures. It has spoken to public representatives to convince residents to voluntarily move out. These buildings have put at risk of inundation some 5,000 residents living on the stretch from R.K. Puram via Malkajgiri to Nacharam.
After wasting four years conducting surveys and studies, the civic body, in 2017, had embarked on removing encroachments from city nalas to widen them. The corporation had identified over 12,000 such encroachments, but decided to clear 800 from 47 critical bottlenecks on priority at an estimated cost of Rs 230 crore. As per sources, the nala-widening project flopped. Public representatives began facing the ire of residents whenever the upstream areas got inundated. With this, political leaders began pressing the GHMC to provide a permanent solution for inundated areas. The same political leaders had opposed the project earlier, officials pointed
out. Out of the 47 critical bottlenecks, GHMC cleared just four in the last 30 months.
Mayor Bonthu Rammohan said the flooding occured since the nala-widening project did not take off. He said that in order to rescue major flood-prone areas like East Anandbagh, the corporation has decided to demolish 50 structures in the area.
He said that after facing the ire of residents in Malkajgiri, local MLA Hanumanth Rao Mynampally had submitted a memorandum to widen the nalas.
