HMDA neglects 250-year-old lake

Hyderabad: It seems that the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) have slight regard for Bam Rukn-ud-Dowla, a 250-year-old lake with a water spread of 103 acres in Hyderabad. It is learnt that to a recent RTI applications, the officials could not trace down the lake itself in the map.

According to SQ Masood, an RTI activist, and Lubna Sarwath, Save Our Urban Lakes (SOUL) convener, HMDA, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and SOUL had conducted a joint inspection of various disappeared and existing lakes lying north and south of Miralam Tank under Miralam and Umdasagar basins. An said report was piled up in December 2012 and among the many recommendations, it was observed that Bam Rukn-ud-Dowla, an existing lake, be protected from encroachments by fencing the land under full tank level. What has irked the activists is that despite conducting the inspection, HMDA shrugged off its responsibility of protecting the lake. The worst part is that HMDA has failed to clear the fencing which one Chitranjan Roy, staking claim to a land parcel adjacent to the lake, had erected. DSP Madan Mohan of the HMDA enforcement cell had even urged the GHMC and irrigation department to cooperate in bringing down encroachments, but reportedly received no cooperation, added sources.