Government sanctioned encroachments for a road and a park in Durgam Cheruvu. | Photo Credit: SWATHI VADLAMUDI
The walking track surrounding the much celebrated lake in the western part of the city, Durgam Cheruvu is the location of daily visits by the cream of the society in the city, which includes top bureaucrats, judges, engineers, politicians and the general elite.
Brusquely hindering their well laid path around the lake is one plot abutting the main road, where several mounds of soil lay deposited. Parallel to the walking track is the road in making, connecting the location with the road leading to Inorbit Mall. Tall towers of power supply lines dot the landscape all along.
The plot, raised and levelled, together with the walking track, the road in the making, the power lines, and part of the existing road, are all part of the Durgam Cheruvu’s Full Tank Level, which is inviolable as per the law.
Large pipelines are laid circumventing the plot, to connect to the lake, to carry the excess flow of rainwater from the surrounding colonies. In the event of copious rains, the pipelines would bring enormous flood water into the lake, filling it up to the FTL.
As of now, it appears a remote possibility, as a half of the lake’s FTL is occupied by residential and commercial structures, in disregard of the boundary stones planted by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. It has been close to 10 years since the FTL area was demarcated through preliminary notification, but the area is yet to be secured through final notification.
Initially estimated to have spread across 160 acre valley in the hilly region, the lake is now reduced to 84 acres. The cable-stayed bridge occupied it further. The fresh attempts at filling up and road laying will only add to the violations already in place, but they have official sanction.
Though belonging to two private persons, the five-acre site reportedly is being negotiated for by Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, to create a park. Officials under the condition of anonymity informed that a case is pending in the court against attempts by the government to lay the road through it. If negotiations out of the court yield result, a park will be developed in the area, right in the FTL area of the lake.
The corporate entity which has been handed over the ‘development’ of the Durgam Cheruvu as tourist destination under the corporate social responsibility initiative, will also develop the park, sources informed.
