The crumbling state of the Hyderabad's storm water drains and the city's tendency to get flooded every year during the monsoon came up for discussion at the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.
"Each time Hyderabad is subjected to monsoons and thunderstorms, drains in the city are overflowing with storm water, converting the entire city into a stretch of water body in itself," BJP floor leader G Kishen Reddy remarked.
Pointing out that excess water from Tank Bund to Gandhinagar, Ashok Nagar, Chikkadpally, Barkatpura, Golnaka and Ratna Nagar drained into the Musi River, the BJP MLA asked, "How is this stormwater expected to join the river when it is clogged by the silt in drains which the government is reluctant to remove?"
"GHMC begins the process of desilting only in the months when the monsoon is expected to arrive. Desilting is ineffective unless done right from January onwards. In fact, the process of desilting itself is redundant when silt is removed only from the manholes and not from the drains that connect them. Despite bringing up the issue several times, the meetings that were supposed to be conducted every 3 months to deliberate on this issue, as promised, are still awaited," Reddy said.
Responding to him, Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao said, "The first meeting we had with 24 legislators turned out to be another mini-Assembly with everyone clamouring to speak. So we have decided to have parliamentary constituency wise meetings wherein only the area MP and MLAs will participate."
As far as the silt was concerned, KTR said, "The silt is being removed and put on the road again. This has to be removed and dumped elsewhere on the city outskirts. We have to work out that system.”
"While 43.61 lakh cubic meters of silt was removed last year, around 75 lakh cubic meters silt has been removed this year to ensure free flow of drainage water. There is 186% increase in desiltation of nalas through introduction of mechanisation...Similarly, 346 road vulnerable points which are prone to water stagnation were identified and efforts are on to rectify them at a cost of Rs 121.44 crore by next monsoon," KTR was quoted as saying.
KTR also said that there were 9,000 km of roads in the city while there were only 1,200 km of storm water drains plus 390 km of major storm water drains.
On a question of removing encroachments, KTR said, "We have sanctioned Rs 230 crore to clear these encroachments. Nearly 400 structures have already been razed and the remaining will be demolished in the next three months. The works will be completed by March, much before the onset of the monsoon in June.”