Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Key Hyderabad reservoirs face threat from construction push
HYDERABAD: For 26 years now, GO 111 has done its job, protecting two major reservoirs, Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar on the outskirts of Hyderabad from the perils faced by any water body on the edge of a fast-growing city in one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
Now, it is gone, replaced by GO 69, and environmentalists and urban water management experts are gearing up for a legal battle to protect the two water bodies.
On April 12, the Telangana cabinet took a decision to scrap Government Order 111, and replace it with Government Order 69. The new order said the government decided to remove restrictions imposed in the old order because Hyderabad is no longer dependent for its drinking water on Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar. It added that steps would be taken to ensure that the removal of restrictions would not impact the water quality of these two reservoirs in any manner.
The old order’s scrapping also allowed construction around the water bodies.
“Hyderabad is now getting drinking water from Godavari and Krishna rivers and is not depending on the two reservoirs. As such, the GO has become redundant. The scrapping the GO can remove the restrictions on the construction activity which is essential as the city is fast expanding,” chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao said on April 12.
That’s exactly what environmentalists feared.
One of them, K Purushottam Reddy, said that he sees indiscriminate construction now happening all around the two reservoirs.
“Though the reservoirs are no more sources of drinking water, they will get polluted. Over a period of time, these reservoirs will shrink due to encroachments by the real estate mafia. The forest belt in the catchment areas of these reservoir will disappear, resulting in a major climate change,” Reddy said.
His reference is probably to the urban heat island effect, where a built up area is hotter than its surroundings.
And the water bodies’ primary role was never to provide drinking water, another expert said. Their job was far more critical.
“It is wrong to assume that Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar were built to provide drinking water to Hyderabad. They were built only to prevent floods to the city,” said urban water management and climate change expert B V Subba Rao.
Still, GO 111 is now a thing of the past. In the new order, the state’s chief secretary Somesh Kumar said decentralised Sewage Treatments Plants (STPs) would be installed at various locations, diversion channels would be constructed for carrying the treated water without letting it into these two reservoirs, and ground water quality would be maintained.
The government has constituted a high-level committee headed by the chief secretary and comprising special chief secretary (municipal administration and urban development), special chief secretary (finance), special chief secretary (irrigation and command area development), managing director of Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board, member secretary of Telangana state pollution control board, and director of planning in Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority, to suggest measures for prevention of pollution of the two reservoirs, including earmarking of green zones.
That may not be enough protection.
GO 111, issued on March 8, 1996, following the recommendation of an expert committee, was aimed at conserving the twin reservoirs from pollution.
It prohibited construction of factories, large hotels, residential colonies and polluting establishments up to a radius of 10km from the full-tank level (FTL) of the two reservoirs. So, the restricted zone covers the total catchment area of about 584 sq km of the two lakes, around 1.32 lakh acres of land in 84 villages. That’s a lot of land for a hungry city to leave untouched.
The old order allowed existing residential colonies and villages to stay, as long as they aggregated less than 10% of the area; 90% of the overall area was classified for conservation and recreation use, which meant only agriculture, farming, and gardening activities were allowed.
It didn’t entirely stop development. “Over the last two decades, the norms mentioned in the GO were repeatedly flouted and several high-rise buildings, colonies and farmhouses came up in the restricted zone,” Subba Rao pointed out.
But it did help. In 2000, the order was upheld by the Supreme Court after activists moved the apex court challenging the construction of a chemical factory in the catchment area of Osman
Sagar. That protection is no longer available.
Environmentalists, who met on Tuesday, plan to engage lawyers and move the Supreme Court again challenging the decision to scrap the order. “The Supreme Court has already upheld the GO 111 and any decision to scrap it amounts to contempt of court,” Reddy claimed.
The history
Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar were built on two rivers, Musi and Isa, in 1920 and 1927 respectively, during the regime of the Seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan. They were constructed after the devastating 1908 floods in Hyderabad that killed thousands of people. And they were designed who is widely considered the best engineer ever produced in India.
“The reservoirs were designed by Mokshagundam Visveswaraya in such a way that there would be no floods in the city. Osman Sagar has 15 gates while Himayat Sagar has 17, to release excess water into the river. Since they were storing water, they also became a major source of drinking water,” Rao said; adding that just because they ceased to be the drinking water sources, they cannot be abandoned. Indeed, their original purpose is still relevant at a time when climate scientists warn of increasing risks to cities from patchy monsoon rains and flooding.
Subba Rao warned that the threat to the city is real. “With the entire catchment area turning into a concrete jungle, Hyderabad is likely to witness devastating floods in the coming years. Since there is every possibility of several industries coming up in the area, the floods would also bring heavy pollution into the city,” he said.
Rao added that the catchment area of the two reservoirs has a high-sensitive fragile ecosystem with rare flora and fauna. “The scrapping of GO will affect the biodiversity in the area.” Some of the flora and fauna unique to the area include centuries-old banyan trees and rare birds such as migrating harriers and tawny eagles.
A senior government official in the state urban development department said on condition of anonymity that the government has taken a policy decision to abolish GO 111 based on the requests from local villagers, real estate developers and industrialists.
However, the government will take every care to protect the green zones and water bodies and ensure that the master plan of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority is implemented, this person added.
Purushottam Reddy said that the government should be expanding the scope of the GO 111 instead of scrapping it. It should cover the entire catchment area of Musi and Isa rivers, instead of just 10km radius of the reservoirs, he argued.
“Will the government allow the construction of a chemical factory in the 11th kilometre?” he asked.
Rao, too, is a votary for protecting the entire catchment area of 2,076 sq km, and beyond. If he had his say, he’d ask the government to focus on the source – “that is, protection of source of the origin of river in Vikarabad, about 100km away from Hyderabad.”
It’s now up to the courts.