HYDERABAD: A group of schoolchildren, youngsters and senior citizens led by the Forum for Better Hyderabad organised the Musi River Front Walk on the occasion of World Rivers Day on Sunday to spread the message of protecting Musi river from getting polluted.
Remembering the Musi floods of 1914 which took away lives of 20,000 people and destroyed thousands of houses including the Puranapul bridge, M Vedakumar, Chairman, Forum for Better Hyderabad, recalled how the City Improvement Board was formed by the then Nizam of Hyderabad State by engaging Ali Nawaz Jung and M Visvesvaraya, who built a drainage system to prevent such floods from happening again.
“Seventeen STPs have been setup to treat effluents entering the Musi in recent times, but we have been able to clean only 25 per cent of the 4,000 million litres entering the river from various sources,” Vedakumar told Express. Observing that the problem needed to be addressed at the origins, he hoped for more STPs to be setup and also the need for people to take ownership of Musi’s protection, which his organisation has been doing since its inception in 2000.
Since 1980, about 100 countries have been observing ‘World Rivers Day’ with several organisations like Forum for Better Hyderabad conducting awareness activities on the fourth Sunday of September every year. On Sunday, the volunteers also organised a photo exhibition on the banks of the Musi near Salar Jung Museum and also planted saplings on the banks as part of the ‘Green Challenge.’
Not enough
Vedakumar said that only 25% of the 4,000 million litres entering Musi can be cleaned, which doesn’t reduce the pollution much