The sprawling Chenna Cheruvu in Bowrampet village is on the verge of being destroyed owing to officials tampering with the storm water drainage system, on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
| Photo Credit: G RAMAKRISHNA
It’s a quaint township tucked into a corner at Bowrampet, close to the Outer Ring Road. Accommodating 234 villa type residences hemmed in by wide roads and thick greenery, it is the kind of place everybody looks forward to live in. Added to these advantages is the rare privilege of two lakes, Chenna Cheruvu and Kotha Cheruvu on either side of the township.
There end the blessings of the Hi Rise PVR Meadows, one of the rare gated communities to have been constructed before 2010 in the neighbourhood of ORR. Lake view is no more a brownie point there now. Sewage mixed slush enters the community every time it rains, turning it into a horribly stinking cesspool.
“The catch pits overflow, and fill the roads with sewage. Due to crisscrossing of water supply lines with the storm water drains, some times sewage enters our sumps, forcing us to clean them up so very often. During recent rains, the water entered our homes too,” fumes P. Padma Priya, president of the Hi Rise PVR Meadows Owners’ Welfare Association.
The township is one of the very few in the city, which have not encroached upon the lakes’ FTL and buffer zones, despite the close proximity. A storm water drain connects both the lakes, facilitating hassle-free drainage from Kotha Cheruvu to Chenna Cheruvu.
Further, they have a sewage treatment plant, and the treated water is used entirely for gardening, which explains the lush greenery inside. Sadly, all this care has come to a nought, and one lake now has become the receptacle of sewage, while the other lake is on the verge of disappearing owing to rampant encroachments.
The original extent of Kotha Cheruvu on the eastern side in the limits of Mallampet mandal of Medchal Malkajgiri district, was over nine acres as per locals, and mentioned as close to eight acres in the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority records. Now only about two to three acres remains, with a large number of houses constructed right in the FTL area. Within the lake there is a Government High School. The breach was initiated by none other than Revenue Department officials, who thought it wise to allot land pattas to the poor inside the lake, way back in 2006 when the lake was dry.
A public interest litigation was filed in 2013 challenging the construction within the FTL, and the Andhra Pradesh High Court issued orders against it. Notwithstanding the orders, more structures came up over the years, condoned by the officials.
Post-2016, when it rained heavy and the thickly constructed areas in Bachupally went under water, the district authorities began to dig a canal to divert the flows into Kotha Cheruvu. Later, the Nizampet Municipal Corporation constructed an open drain connecting the flows to Kotha Cheruvu, which started filling the lake. In 2020, the entire colony got flooded due to inordinate increase in the run off.
“Initially constructed for storm water, the drain is now bringing sewage all the 365 days into the lake. Residents who occupied the lake complained about the same, which resulted in Dundigal Municipality under which the lake comes, digging a deeper trench to connect the newly-constructed drain to the existing drain between the lakes, bypassing Kotha Cheruvu. This has resulted in Chenna Cheruvu receiving all the sewage round the year,” complained Ms. Padma Priya, who alleges that this was done at the behest of the local politicians who want to manufacture land from the lake.
Throwing of garbage inside the drain worsens the problem. The drains get clogged, and sewage flows over onto the roads.
