The Times of India  03.12.2010

HYDERABAD: Throwing norms to the wind, hundreds of buildings have come up within full tank level of two lakes in surrounding municipal circles of the city. Ironically, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is not in a position either to remove those encroachments or even term them as unauthorised as most of them were permitted by the erstwhile Malkajgiri municipality, which is now part of GHMC, by collecting necessary fee in the past two decades.

These revelations came to the notice of civic authorities during inspections of Safilguda lake and Bandla Cheruvu by a team of officials to file a report in the High Court with regard to encroachments.

Officials said over 550 encroachments were identified in Bandla Cheruvu, while 300 encroachments were found in Safilguda tank.

As of now, the Safilguda lake is spread over 27.50 acres against its original spread of 86 acres, of which 19 acres were government land and 70 acres patta land.

All the buildings that came up on the lake bed were permitted and some were even regularised under the building penalisation scheme (BPS) for deviations. Similarly, the existing lake spread of Bandla Cheruvu is only 50 acres against its original area of 102 acres. Nearly 200 of 550 buildings in the full tank level (FTL) of Bandla Cheruvu were permitted by the erstwhile civic body.

Interestingly, stones demarcating the FTL area are now located in the middle of houses around the Safilguda lake, while there is no clear demarcation of FTL of the Bandla Cheruvu.

Due to these revelations, the GHMC is now passing the buck on to the revenue department and Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA).

"Removal of encroachments is the responsibility of the revenue department and protection of lakes is in the purview of HMDA. Both the departments were mute spectators when buildings came up. GHMC had no role in protection of lakes till recently," GHMC additional chief city planner K Srinivasa Rao said.

"Since many buildings were permitted in the lake bed, they cannot be removed, and those which were not permitted can be removed by the revenue department," the additional CCP said.

A few months ago, the municipal administration and urban development (MA&UD) department formed a lake protection committee with representatives from departments like HMDA, GHMC, Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy district collectorates and other departments to protect the water bodies.

The job of demarcation of FTL of 169 of 501 lakes and water bodies in HMDA limits was entrusted to the GHMC. It was decided to protect the water spread area and buffer zone of lakes and also to enumerate encroachments along with survey numbers for taking further necessary action for removal.

The corporation has decided to inspect each lake in a week with a team of officials.