HYDERABAD: Though it is just only a month-and-a-half before the South West monsoon sets in, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is yet to get its act together in regard to desilting nalas and stormwater drains. The tardy pace of desilting works appears to guarantee floods in the event of any downpour in the city like last year when hundreds of localities remained either waterlogged or submerged for days with stormwater drains and nalas full of silt and other waste material impeding the flow of the floodwater.
This year Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has identified 371 desilting works in all the 30 GHMC circles and of them, 211 works are under progress. It is not clear how much time it will take for the completion and 157 works are yet to begin and for three works, there is no response from the agencies.
For 371 works, a sum of Rs 56.31 crore has been sanctioned. Of them, 211 works costing Rs 31.96 crore are in progress. For 157 works costing Rs 23.98 crore have not yet started. Except in the Charminar zone, in the other five zones, more than 50 per cent of the works are yet to begin.
In the Serilingampally zone, of 36 desilting works, only nine are in progress; the remaining 26 are yet to start. In the Secunderabad zone, of 51 works, only 16 works are under progress and the remaining 34 are yet to commence.During the ensuing monsoon, people are likely to face the hardship with stormwater drains likely to overflow due to the slow pace of desilting works as drains could be blocked due to silt getting piled up both in the open and closed drains. Even pre-monsoon showers a few days ago had brought the city to its knees as the majority of the roads were flooded with rainwater resulting in traffic jams.The GHMC, Hyderabad and Cyberabad Police Commissionerates last year identified over 300 water stagnation points and 350 road vulnerable points across the city.
Barring a few temporary measures, no permanent solutions were found to address the problem, knowing well that during monsoon, Hyderabad traditionally faces waterlogging and flooding of roads in many city locations due to insufficient size of storm water drain available, no comprehensive SWD network, poor desilting works, throwing of garbage, plastic bags and other unwanted material into stormwater drains, resulting in the obstruction of smooth flow of rainwater.
Though Strategic Nala Development Programme (SNDP) works have started in the city, it may take a few months to complete the works. In L B Nagar zone, about 47 works have been identified worth Rs 6.12 crore, of them 25 works are said to be under progress while the remaining 22 works are yet to begin.
No permanent solutions found
The GHMC, Hyderabad and Cyberabad Police Commissionerates last year identified over 300 water stagnation points and 350 road vulnerable points across the city. Barring a few temporary measures, no permanent solutions were found taken to address the problem