The Fathima Owaisi Women’s College, and the Owaisi School of Excellence are run by the Salar-e-Millat Educational Trust of which Akbaruddin Owaisi is the founder.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi made an emotive speech against pulling down the buildings housing a school and a college in Bandlaguda, constructed occupying a lake’s territory.
The Fathima Owaisi Women’s College, and the Owaisi School of Excellence are run by the Salar-e-Millat Educational Trust of which Mr. Owaisi is the founder. Invoking the attack on him in 2011, Mr. Owaisi is heard saying, “Please attack me again with swords and guns, but do not destroy the good work being done by me.”
The school and college are offering education to lakhs of underprivileged students, Mr. Owaisi claimed, and said he will not show his back to his enemies. The college and school which Mr. Owaisi mentioned in the speech are right inside the lake mentioned as ‘Surram Cheruvu’ in the records of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority. Google Earth satellite images from 2012-14 show the lake free of encroachments, but it appears all filled up into the alcove adjacent to the bund by October, 2015.
Construction of the institutions and other buildings around continued unhindered since then, and even in April, 2023, an earthmover can be seen levelling the earth. A residential area has come up inside the lake, named M. M. Colony.
Basketball courts, cricket nets and what appears to be a pool have come up in the lake’s boundary along with other infrastructure, irrespective of the rising water level in the lake since the 2020 floods.
Surplus channel of the Surram Cheruvu is completely encroached, leaving the lake downstream named Salkam Cheruvu bone dry. While no evidence of any lake is visible in the satellite imagery from 2012, the Survey of India toposheets clearly show that a twin lake existed at the location, which emptied into Gurram Cheruvu at Barkas.
Upstream of Surram Cheruvu, another lake Yerragunta is on the verge of disappearance, posing the threat of flooding in the surrounding areas. One more lake nearby named ‘Palle Cheruvu’ is totally wiped off.
Activist Lubna Sarwath highlights the flooding experienced by the areas such as Nabeel Colony, Habeeb Colony, Mohammed Nagar and others falling between Yerragunta and Surram Cheruvu. The encroachment has come to the centre stage now, after the recently constituted Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency (HYDRAA) has gone on a spree of demolitions inside the lakes, oftentimes of high-profile encroachers.
Most notable operations by HYDRAA were the clearance of Bam Rukn-ud-Dowlah lake in Rajendranagar mandal, demolitions inside the Osmansagar reservoir in Gandipet and Tammidikunta lake in Kothaguda, amid vocal protests by the owners of the structures.
