GHMC blames plastic dumping for water logging in city

Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) said that dumping of plastic in open nalas and drains was primarily responsible for causing water logging in Hyderabad during heavy rains on October 2.

The GHMC, on Wednesday, issued a press note titled "Whom to be blamed?" with the pictures showing how plastic waste has blocked the storm water drains at the Bio Diversity Junction. "There was huge inundation on the Old Bombay Highway near ESCI. This not only caused huge traffic jams but also sleepless nights to the GHMC Engineers and Traffic Police. It was due to the blockage in the pipe culvert with plastic material which led to the water logging," the corporation said.

Plastic is non-biodegradable and do not decay by biological actions of microbes. They remain in the same state as we throw them. So, dumps or garbages creates pollution and if blocked pipes with plastic material as in this case makes the atmosphere disastrous and lot of inconvenience to the public especially during rainy season. These polluted components of environment leads to imbalance of various ecosystem of the earth.

In most cases, blocks in the storm water drains are due to plastic materials and they are found to be the cause. The garbage and bags flowed with the rain water and blocked the storm water Pipe Culvert at Bio Diversity junction. The garbage gradually accumulated in the drain and then turned into obstinate blocks, hampering flow of rain water causing water stagnation on the road obstructing traffic flow (halting about 16000 PCU’s for about 3 hours) and the same situation prevailed for 2 days. This made GHMC Engineers and traffic police to stand on roads from 02.10.2017, 6.00 PM to 03.10.2017, 11.00 PM for about 30 hrs to solve the issue right from the Chief Engineer cadre to the lowest level. Everybody was panicked as several attempts to solve the issue of water logging on roads failed, the GHMC said in the press release.

The Chief Engineer, Projects, GHMC then approached the Police requesting them to close the road for 12 hrs to resolve the issue. Then as per the suggestion of the Chief Engineer, bunds with excavated earth were formed on both sides of the pipe culvert to remove the stagnated water in between the bunds formed. After clearing the water, the pipes were removed and to the surprise of everybody, mostly it was only the plastic bags which formed as a ring inside the pipes not allowing even one drop of water into the pipes. This was the cause for the water logging on the roads near Bio Diversity.

The GHMC has requested the public to think about the throwing of garbage which includes plastic into the drains and roads which has lead to the entire issue of water logging at Bio Diversity junction. It has to be understood that, throwing of garbage on roads and drains has lead to water logging, traffic jams, vehicles getting damaged, sleepless nights to all the officials, and most importantly panic to the public. Also due to this traffic jam several ambulances were halted creating lot of inconvenience to the patients to be moved to the hospital. This can be controlled only when the awareness is made to the public and also by making them know the consequences due to this.

Over the past two decades, there has been lot of development in the drainage flow areas i.e., up stream of this culvert. The Barlakunta Nala which flows through these areas was indiscriminately encroached / diverted making the entire roads in the above area virtually to act as drains which finally crosses the Old Mumbai highway at the said location and joins Khajaguda cheruvu. Due to the urbanization, the percolation into the ground has been completely prevented. Moreover, open lands which hitherto would have acted as small ponds to retain water for some time and release slowly have now been developed into high rise structures making entire area into concrete jungle by indiscriminately destroying the entire natural drainage system of the area.

However, anticipating the above issue early, GHMC has already taken up the construction of twin box culvert work of size 7m x 2m size taking into consideration all the hydraulics and as the existing pipe culvert is not at all sufficient during heavy rains. The work is in progress with an estimated value of Rs. 2.2 crores for a length of 215m. Of which15m length is already completed and further 11m is in progress, the press release added.