Hyderabad: The government’s proposal to scrap Government Order 111, which creates a 10-km pollution-free zone around the Osmansagar and Himayatsagar, has resulted in rampant encroachment of the channels that bring water to the two reservoirs.
Though successive governments have systematically damaged the reservoirs’ infrastructure, the present dispensation has decided to bring the axe down on GO 111 claiming it was hindering development in the area. Cutting across party lines, almost every politician, industrialist and businessman owns establishments in violation of GO 111.
Due to the damage to the inlet channels caused by the encroachments, the two reservoirs, created a century ago to prevent floods and provide drinking water to the city, did not receive any water though the state received heavy rainfall this season.
Officials of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board claimed that they had cleared the feeder channels between March and May. The lakes did not get water as the rainfall was deficient, they said.
Establishing the importance of the lake, a high level committee headed by S.P. Shorey stated, in 1994: “Any future water supply scheme to Hyderabad involves in high investment besides considerable operation and maintenance expenses. Hence there is absolute need to safeguard the existing sources like Himayatsagar, Osmansagar, Manjeera and Singur reservoirs.”
The GO that was issued on March 8, 1996, tasked the Water Board with prohibiting polluting industries, major hotels, residential colonies or other establishments that generate pollution in the catchment of the lakes up to 10 km from the full tank level. Successive officials have taken that responsibility lightly.
Violating GO 111 norms, more than 50 borewells within the bund and 1,000 trenches were found within the 10-km radius in the catchment areas of the reservoirs. Trenching below the bund level will prevent rain water from entering the reservoirs.
The authorised blockages have been working to supply water to the establishments owned by the rich and powerful. Unauthorised establishments like farmhouses, a cricket playground, stone quarries, real estate ventures and others have come up in the prohibited zone.
The result of all this abuse of the lake’s protected zones has been that the residents in the vicinity are getting highly contaminated water for their daily needs including drinking.
According to sources in Water Board, political leaders along with officials in successive governments have violated several norms.
Due to trenching and drawing water through illegal borewells, the city has been losing at least 25 million gallons per day from both the reservoirs, which would otherwise have served about 2.5 lakh people in the city.
With the water level not rising in the two lakes, at a time when almost all other reservoirs are full, there are fears that the city would face a similar situation as in 1987, when residents living in the vicinity of the two reservoirs were forced to vacate their houses due to the water crisis.
Asked about the problem, HMWS&SW general manager M. Sujatha, who oversees the two reservoirs, said that deficit rainfall in the catchment areas like Vikarabad was the reason for Himayatsagar and Osmansagar being empty. She said that the catchment area should receive at least 80 mm of rainfall a day to fill the reservoirs.
