HYDERABAD: With several colonies in Hanuman Nagar and Maruthi Nagar marooned by the intermittent but heavy bouts of rains that lashed the city during the last few days, around 20 to 25 families were forced to lock their homes and seek temporary shelter either at their relatives’ or friends’ houses.
While Saturday night’s rains gave them sleepless nights, residents were hoping that the government officials would visit their colonies on Sunday and offer some help or at least a solution to resolve the issue. But they were left in the lurch and the hapless residents are irked by the indifferent attitude of both the people’s representatives and the district administration. A 10-year-old boy died due to flooding in Hanuman Nagar last month, but the government failed to take any corrective steps in addressing the issue, lamented one resident.
Srinivas, who has been residing in the colony for past 15 years, told Express that last year heavy rains inundated around 30 to 40 houses and the primary reason for inundation was that sluice was closed long ago while laying radial road from Nagole to Taramatipet ORR. The height of the road was increased by six feet.
Weir was obstructed by a road and the Irrigation Department failed to lay a pipeline and connect to the nearest culvert. The Voora cheruvu is getting heavy inflows from Auto Nagar area, which was diverted illegally to save the people living in surrounding areas.
“We’ve given various representations regarding flooding to Additional Collector, Rangareddy, Executive Engineer, I&CAD, Municipal Commissioner, Pedda Amberpet Municipality, MRO, Abdullapurmet mandal, HMDA Chief Engineer and Ibrahimpatnam MLA, Manchireddy Kishenreddy for sluice opening but nothing was done in this regard. If the cement pipeline from Voora Cheruvu weir to culvert were laid deeper by another three feet, then the flooding in the colony and death of a kid could have been avoided last month,” another resident Kushal Deshmukh said.
An equally pathetic situation prevails in MLR Colony and Satyasai Colony of Meerpet where houses and roads have been completely inundated. As most areas already have four feet of water, more rains during the next 24 to 48 hours will make life even more miserable for the residents of these colonies. While a few families have already moved to safes places, the DRF teams were pressed into service to help others.
The locals say they have been facing problems for the last one year as large scale settlements have come up around the water bodies.“Lack of adequate storm water drains in the colony is the root cause for flooding. The existing small stormwater drains, which were laid in the colony a few years ago, are choked with all sorts of materials,” said Madhu, a resident of MLR Colony.