HYDERABAD: A Home to mushrooming IT companies and massive real estate projects, Serilingampally mandal, which includes IT corridor areas is reaching a state of complete concretisation and might witness desertification if no action is taken. Localities like Gachibowli, Nanakramguda, Manikonda, Madhapur, Kondapur, Raidurgam, Kothaguda and Chandanagar are rapidly changing.
A recently conducted study found that the built up area in Serilingampally increased from just below 1 per cent in 1975 to close to 70 per cent in 2016.
As a result of more concrete and less open land, the amount of water from rainfalls percolating into the ground is on a decline and there has been an increase in the amount of rainwater that gets washed off into drains or evaporates. The study found that in the same time period, the rain water run off increased by 27.5 per cent.
Sample this - the study found that in the month of June, arrival of southwest monsoon, almost 114 millimeter of rainfall was run off in 2016 as compared to just 44.93 mm in 1975.
As the amount of water that gets percolated declines, it results in less availability of groundwater. Not surprisingly in areas like Manikonda, Gachibowli and Kondapur people are sinking borewells up to 1,000 feet. Water issues get severe in many areas of Serilingampally during summer and without enough groundwater availability, people spend thousands every month on water tankers.
Prof CR Prakash, former academic consultant at Center for Spatial Information Technology, JNTU-Hyderabad, who conducted the study says, “This is a part of a larger study which I am doing. Now I am working on how this concretisation over the years is impacting the environment in Serilingampally, especially the soil, groundwater and surface water quality.”
BV Subba Rao, founding member of Save Our Urban Lakes (SOUL), says, “There are no storm water drains in Serilingampally. Laying some rainwater harvesting structures here and there will be of no help. It is a thumb rule that with urbanisation, rainwater run off increases drastically and it is the failure on part of urban planning authorities who did not plan for utilising rainwater and controlling run off. There is a severe requirement of storm water drains which can channelise the rainwater run off.”