Hyderabad: Officials mulling to buy time to clear Burhankhan Lake encroachments

Jalpally: With just three days left for a hearing on Burhankhan Lake encroachment case in the High Court, the Jalpally municipal authorities are contemplating to seek more time to implement court order as the number of houses remain inundated making it difficult to square off encroachments.

The HC while hearing a case filed by the Mudiraj Sangam, represented by its president Kaalva Ganesh in July, has passed an order to remove illegal structures that came up within the full tank level of the lake at Venkatapur village of Balapur mandal in Ranga Reddy district. While instructing authorities to file the action taken report within four weeks the court posted the matter on October 27.

However, there is no breakthrough yet in the case, as most houses are still inundated while officials are busy in their routine work. "It is quite difficult for officials of the line department to pull the inundated houses down by pushing machines deep inside the troubled water. As such we have decided to buy some more time to implement the order as there are a few works that need to be done before squaring off the area," reliable sources informed.

"Though officials are saying that there are 350-400 houses in the FTL area, the ground reality is completely the other way around. Leave alone the Osman Nagar, number of structures abutting the lake on the other side too comes under the FTL area, if officials fairly carry out identification process at the lake," asserted Talha Salha Kaseri.

Spread over 78.231 acres and encompassing through several areas before taking a complete circle of 3107.150 metres covering two municipalities, the lake shares its boundaries with Osman Nagar area on one side, under Jalpally Municipality, and Venkatapur, on the other under the Badangpet Municipality.

Not much different from the situation at Jalpally Lake, the lake is to face similar threats to its survival, while both lakes come under the Maheshwaram constituency represented by Minister of Education Sabitha Indra Reddy.

While hearing the case, the court asked the respondents about the steps taken to remove illegal constructions raised within the full tank level and the buffer zone. Not convinced with the reply, the court directed authorities to remove those within the FTL and the buffer zone and file a fresh action taken report within four weeks.

However, the issue has overlapped due to fresh spell of rain in September and simmered down earlier this month while officials were mostly seen busy in areas facing inundation this season again.

Also, officials of the irrigation and municipality were at loggerheads over the issue of identifying the lake FTL ever since the court passed the order. Despite court directions, no initiatives have appeared on the ground so far with regard to identifying the FTL.