HYDERABAD: Demolition drives around city lakes, only post a calamity, isn’t an answer to Hyderabad’s flooding problem. Instead, experts suggest that the government set up a special wing, with a single point agenda – to deal with encroachments with an iron fist, through the year. The team’s job: to monitor such constructions and initiate appropriate action – either impose hefty fines or imprisonment – against repeat offenders.
“At present, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s (GHMC) town planning wing staff pull down illegal structures based on a complaint or court order. The wing is busy with regular duties and many civic bodies do not have sufficient staff to discharge regular duties. The situation is similar in other civic bodies around the city where they have been running with meagre staff. There should be a dedicated wing to deal with encroachments near lakes,” former chief city planner of GHMC B Purushottam Reddy told TOI. He suggested that lakes should be demarcated clearly so that gullible people are not cheated by developers.
To make this a success, experts recommend that the government rope in all agencies like GHMC, Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), irrigation, police, panchayat raj and forest departments in this endeavour. While the GHMC and HMDA have enforcement wings to remove encroachments on roads, there is no such arrangement for lakes. Though there is a lake protection committee (LPC) for HMDA area, which meets once or twice in a year and mainly focuses on drawing up plans for lake protection, it hasn’t been very effective so far.
In 2019, the Madras High Court asked the Tamil Nadu government to constitute a special wing with adequate staff to evict all encroachments on water bodies.
On their part, GHMC officials say there was a proposal for the government to take over patta land – many of which fall right in the lake bed – and offer the owners transferable development rights (TDRs) as being implemented for acquiring properties for road-widening. The objective: to protect water bodies and curtail the rate of encroachments.