HYDERABAD: Rampant encroachments surrounding Mir Alam tank has put the Nehru Zoological Park at an increasing risk of flooding every year, forcing officials to shut down the 99-acre animal safari park for days due to the inundation.
Intense spells of rains that lashed the city last month too led the authorities to sound an alarm and the rains had put the lives of animals at a much higher risk compared to the previous years as the 40-feet wall near the exit nala collapsed due to the pressure of the water gushing from the tank. “This year, the impact of flooding was so severe that we had to shift the animals to night shelters after the water was entering into the animal enclosures from the overflowing moats that border the fencing of the enclosures,” sources from the zoo said.
Speaking to TOI, Lubna Sarwath of Save Our Urban Lakes (SOUL), who has been campaigning to protect the water bodies from encroachments said, “The lake used to be spread over 400 acres, but now it has shrunk because of rampant encroachments on all sides. Much of the encroachments are by the truck companies and luxury bus operators abutting a park which was recently inaugurated by the government authorities.”
While the zoo authorities are preparing to re-open the safari area after the rains subsided, experts TOI spoke to for possible solutions to the problem said that there is a need to take a water shed approach and a flood prevention approach rather than a property encroachment approach. “We have to take the entire city not by municipal wards or by the revenue maps. We need to take this by water sheds because it shows you exactly from where the water is coming from and where it leaves and where it accumulates. Take it by that and then figure out which parts of the system are damaged and then repair it and stop the further damage,” says Anant Maringanti of Hyderabad Urban Labs.