HYDERABAD: About 100 shanties belonging to daily wage workers got submerged rendering them homeless as the water levels in Ramanthapur lake increased due to intermittent rainfall since past few days. Most of the workers, whose houses got submerged, have either went back to their villages or settled down in dry areas of nearby colonies.
The shanties along with cellars of apartments located near Ramanthapur lake, which got submerged, are located in Full Tank Level area of the lake and have been underwater since heavy rainfall occurred in Hyderabad on October 2. The only presence of government officials in this issue is that since one week, Telangana State Disaster Response and Fire Services Department has employed motor pumps to drain water out of Ramanthapur lake so that water level recedes in the lake and the submerged areas can be brought out from being under water. On Sunday, five water pumps were employed, each having a capacity to drain out about 75,000 litres of water every hour. However, thanks to rainfall occurring everyday, efforts have not yet yielded desired results.
Similar condition persisted in Falaknuma, where about 80 shanties of daily wage workers located at an open space adjacent to Falaknuma railway station got submerged as an open nala overflowed and flooded the nearby areas. With no place to go, many workers were forced to sleep at the railway station. This was the second such incident of flooding in the past few weeks of rainfall.
Government officials did not take any action on pumping out the flood waters or providing relief for victims. Most of the residents use fuel wood for cooking and as a result of floods, they are not able to cook food. It was members of civil society from Chandrayangutta who organised food for the flood victims. One of the civil society members said, “These people had come and settled here from other states about 15-20 years ago. They now possess voter identity cards and ration cards from Hyderabad. However, politicians visit them only during elections and nothing has been done to provide relief to these flood victims.”