HYDERABAD: Placing Hyderabad’s water resources onto a virtual platform, city-based NGO, Save Our Urban Lakes (SOUL), officially launched its website on Thursday.
The website will be useful to all citizens who seek information related to government orders, news items, articles, photos, Lake Protection Committee meetings (LPC) and information related to lakes.
MT K r i s h n a B a b u , Commissioner, GHMC who launched the website which was developed by SOUL in collaboration with SACI Waters, called on every citizen to protect water resources, especially fresh water.
Commending the website for choosing the World Water Day for its launch, he also laid out the immediate plans of the LPC, of which he is presently the chairman.
“We will fix the FTL soon for all lakes with the help of the Irrigation and Revenue departments, engage in fencing activities for 49 tanks and will soon furnish an action plan for the protection of lakes, as per a High Court directive,” he said.
He also added that, for each lake or tank, funds to the tune of Rs 10 crore is required, out of which 70% would be provided by the Central Government, 20% from State Government and 10 % from Urban Local bodies.
The Commissioner further proposed a plan to identify chains of tanks, preferably seven, which would help in conservation of the water bodies.
“We will also rely on Digital GPS to create GIS maps on lakes and for marking FTL, which would prove useful to the citizens,” he said.
Earlier at the launch, YPR Krishna, Convenor, SOUL presented a number of documents to the Commissioner along with pictures of lake encroachments for real estate purposes, in and around Hyderabad.
Jasween Jairat, a member of SOUL, also requested the Commissioner to include civil society members or lake activists in the LPC, for better involvement of the committee in various lake development programmes.