Hyderabad: The Kapra lake, which was once covered by hyacinth, is returning to being a home for fish and birds. The dissolved oxygen content in the water of the lake has also improved.
The lake is regularly cleaned up by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and volunteers coming from the locality and the IT industry.
The arrival of birds at the lake indicates that there are fish, and fish survive only when the lake has a decent dissolved oxygen percentage, said Prof. K. Lakshmi Narayana Raju from IICT, one of the volunteers.
Common coot was seen on Kapra lake.
“The minimum dissolved oxygen-level for small fish to grow in lakes is around 5 mg per litre. Before the Ganesh idol immersion, the Kapra lake had around 2.4 mg per litre which was the highest in Hyderabad,” Prof. Raju said.
Earlier, around 90 per cent of the lake’s surface area was covered by water hyacinth. Even as they fought to remove it, the volunteers and GHMC staff set up a system to convert the weed into natural manure by arranging vermicompost pits.
These pits were razed during the Ganesh idol immersion to create parking space for vehicles at that time. The GHMC had promised to rebuild the pits but has not do so yet.
Employees from the corporate sector like Cognizant and Infosys participate in the lake clean-up. The lake has also now become a venue for talks to create awareness against littering.
Sainikpuri resident Deepa Shailender, and one of the organisers of the Kapra lake clean-up, said, "We are happy to see the lake improving. Many people are coming here to volunteer. The GHMC is also doing a commendable job.”
