Hyderabad: GHMC fails to keep promises

Hyderabad: GHMC seems to have several promises to keep. During every monsoon season, when the colonies get flooded and people face harrowing time, officials, Ministers, local MLAs, corporators and leaders of political parties express their lip sympathy, give all kinds of assurances but as the rains recede, the promises vanish say residents of Malkajgiri, East Anandbagh, parts of Safilguda.

Despite repeated appeals by the residents, the authorities have not taken any major works which could mitigate the problem of flooding of roads and houses. Not even 50 per cent of works pertaining to storm water drains have been completed.

The residents told Hans India that three lakes namely Safilguda Lake, RK Puram Lake and Banda Cheruvu or Anandbagh Cheruvu are linked with each other and once there is a heavy downpour, colonies at East Anandbagh namely Sai Baba Colony and NMDC colony gets inundated as there is no proper outlet for backwaters to exit. After the massive flood in 2020, GHMC came up with a proposal to construct stormwater drains. But the works did not progress fast more than 50% works are yet to be taken up. “This monsoon will also be would be equally disastrous,” said B T Srinivasan, General Secretary, United Federation of Resident Welfare Associations.

The residents of Malkajgiri pointed out that the main reason for inundation of colonies here was because of a properly integrated drain network. The existing drainage system is not able to handle sewage outflows as the population and households have increased manifold. The laying of new sewage pipelines was proposed but there has been no progress.

The residents of these colonies had been repeatedly com;aining to the authority concerned about the issue and request the officials to look into the matter seriously but yet no action had been taken so far, they rue.