Crores spent on lake is money down the drain

One of the reasons for the current status of Hussainsagar is the amount of money spent on saving the lake.

The initial big funding came from the Union government, which allocated ₹637 crore in 1994 under the National Lake Conservation Programme for saving 10 lakes across the country. The list included Hussainsagar and the Dal Lake in Kashmir.

Then the Australian government gave financial and technological support for waste management in Hyderabad after which the Royal Netherlands Embassy opened its purse strings and a plan called Greater Hyderabad Environment Programme was drawn up with an overall outlay of ₹206.56 crore.

Next, the Japanese stepped in, with the Japan International Cooperation Agency pitching in its share of ¥7,729 million (₹310 crore) out of a total of ¥9,224 million (₹370 crore) between 2006 and 2012 for saving the lake.

How this money was spent makes for interesting reading. It was meant to be used for: construction of sewerage facilities; construction of recycled water supply facilities; improvement of lake and nalla environment; improvement of slum area; public awareness and community participation; capacity building; and finally, consulting services.

In 2015, the Telangana government came up with a ₹ 100 crore plan to drain out the water and clean up the lake. However, the plan was aborted. One of the reasons was the sediment analysis that revealed the concentration of TCLP (toxicity characteristic leaching procedure) cadmium was higher than the Hazardous Waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 2003.

“The water is acting as a protective layer for the sediment. It is safer if we don’t disturb it,” says P. Veeranna, Joint Chief Environmental Scientist.