Osman Sagar’s facelift to come at `100 crore

HYDERABAD: The State government accorded administrative sanction for `100 crore to take up beautification of Osman Sagar, also known as Gandipet.Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration, Arvind Kumar issued orders to this effect on Monday.  The expenditure would be met directly from the HMDA funds.A task force — ‘Gandipet Lake Development Task Force’ — would be set up under the aegis of HMDA involving Tourism, Revenue, Irrigation, Water Board, TSSPDCL and Social Forestry, Arvind Kumar said. The HMDA would come out with an action plan to make the lake a perennial source.  

Further, while developing an eco-friendly recreational tourist destination, HMDA will incorporate the latest and best components available world over and would integrate with nature and green cover seamlessly.  The plans are to make Gandipet lake an icon green recreational tourism zone in the process in a self funding and self sustainable manner, he stated.The HMDA has proposed to make the Gandipet lake a holiday destination for tourists, without compromising on the water quality and without taking up any activity which affect the quality of the water body directly or indirectly.  

Initially it is proposed to take up the walking track, cycling track, road formation, chain link mesh fencing, street lighting, shoreline strengthening, and landscaping around the periphery of Osman Sagar for length of 25 km. Once the above works are taken up, commercially viable components such as revolving restaurant, cable car, house boats, night camping area, food courts etc on Public Private Partnership (PPP) or lease mode will be taken up, Arvind Kumar said.