HYDERABAD: Hyderabad is home to multiple areas where the environment is ‘probably’ contaminated with dangerous levels of toxic and hazardous substances such as heavy metals, while two locations in the city are confirmed as ‘contaminated’, a latest report of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has stated. The board has declared 112 sites across 21 States as ‘contaminated’ and 168 as ‘probable contaminated sites’ where more scientific assessments are to be taken up.
Two sites in Telangana have been declared as ‘contaminated’ and seven have been listed as ‘probable contaminated sites’. However, all the nine sites are located in and around the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) region.The two contaminated sites are Noor Muhammad Kunta, located on the way to Rajiv Gandhi International Airport adjacent to Kattedan industrial area, and Patancheru that gained notoriety way back in 1980s for pollution by pharmaceutical and bulk drug companies and is listed as a ‘critically polluted area’. Also, no remediation has been taken up by the State government in these two sites.
The CPCB report defines contaminated sites as “...delineated areas in which the constituents and characteristics of the toxic and hazardous substances, caused by humans, exist at levels and in conditions which pose existing or imminent threats to human health and/or the environment”.
Probable contaminated sites
The seven sites that have been declared by the CPCB as ‘probable contaminated sites’ are Musi river, Asani Kunta lake in Medak, Maheshwaram in Rangareddy district and the industrial areas of Chevella, LB Nagar, Moula Ali and Gundlapochampally. Heavy metals, exposure to which is known to cause a range of severe health problems, seems to be a major concern at these sites. The CPCB report mentions that at Moula Ali the soil is highly contaminated with chromium, lead, manganese, nickel and zinc.
Around Asani Kunta, chromium, lead, nickel, cadmium, magnesium and chloride have been detected in the groundwater, while at Maheshwaram, the soil is contaminated with cadmium and nickel, and at Gundlapochampally, the groundwater is ‘highly contaminated’ with lead.