Additional 450 km of urban flood water drains needed in city: Study

Kukatpally: In a study conducted by JNTU ‘Integrated Urban Flood Storm Water Network for GHMC’ proposed additional 450 km of urban flood storm water drains in the central median, was discussed in one-day work shop on ‘Urban floods-way out for Hyderabad city’ held at JNTU for Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Engineers.

Chief guest of the event Dr B Janardhan Reddy, Commissioner, GHMC spoke on the need for proper diagnosis for the problem of urban flooding for the City and out of the box solution for its mitigation. Though resources are limited, but GHMC need to have holistic approach by phasing the solutions on mitigation.

Dr E Saibaba Reddy, Principal JNTU presided over the workshop. Dr K Lakshma Rao, Prof JNTU and coordinator centre of Excellence, JNTU Hyderabad under whose leadership the study had been carried out mentioned that the rainfall patterns were changing due to climatology changes, Urbanisation and environmental imbalance. Heterogeneity of rainfall creates heavy rains in certain pockets and light or no rain in certain other pockets. The study titled ‘Integrated Urban Flood Storm water network (urban by pass) for GHMC’ completed for 229 water logging locations in GHMC under a MOU between GHMC & Centre of Excellence JNTU by sharing cost of study 50%: 50%.

The outcome of study proposed additional 450 km of urban flood storm water drain in the central median, 27, 0350 rain water harvesting structures by households under social responsibility, 17,767 rain water harvesting structures on government lands and 636 water tanks to be constructed under BOT basis. The initial indicative cost of storm water drain is about Rs 400 crore which excludes cost of recombining the roads, land acquisition and rain water harvesting structures which may cost around Rs 2,000 crore.

The GHMC Commissioner suggested for detailed discussion with all the stake holders like Institution of Engineers, Retired professors, Retired Senior Engineers, NGOs, Town planners before adopting the recommendations and revises the estimates after considering the valuable opinions.