Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has ordered a “merciless demolition drive” against illegal buildings in the city to clear encroachments on nalas and lakebeds.
“According to weather experts, the La Nina cycle has begun. We will witness similar kind of heavy rain in the coming years. If we don’t act now, this will repeat,” he said.
Mr Rao said the city has 300-km of nalas, of which 170 km on the Musi have been encroached upon. This will be cleared soon. “If there are any poor people among them, we will provide them houses under 2BHK housing scheme,” he added.
Mr Rao announced the setting up of a tribunal to deal with illegal buildings and deviation in building plans. Mr Rao said the flood fury was because of sins committed by Congress and TD governments. They had approved the 28,000 illegal buildings over nalas, some of them government buildings.
He said if the Opposition was sincere about developing Hyderabad, they should not resist the demolition drive. Mr Rao said learning a lesson from Chennai floods, the Karnataka Chief Minister had ordered demolition of nearly 250 illegal structures to save Bengaluru from floods and state would adopt this.
