Hyderabad: Efforts to pump life into Musi River

Hyderabad: Unbelieveable as it seems, the Musi will have 24-hour flowing water for a stretch of 37 km. This is one of the plans of the Musi Riverfront Development Project.

The plan is to install 32 sewerage treatment plants  along the Musi to recycle grey water generated by the city before it is let into the river.

Each stretch connecting the Musi from Osmansagar to Bapughat, Himayatsagar to Bapughat, Mehdi Colony, Golnaka, Nagole to Outer Ring Road, totalling 50 km, will have eight feet of water when the project is complete.

Officials plan to build 72 check dams with automatic flip gates so the water can be stored and released when required. A four-lane, 64-metre- wide rowing course of 2.4 km is planned on the Musi.

Former MLA and chairman of the Musi Riverfront Development Prem Singh Rathod said that according to a report of the Central Pollution Control Boa-rd, the Musi was highly polluted. 

“The dry weather flow is entirely contributed by sewage from domestic, hospital, and industrial units, and storm water run-off from 31 nalas entering the river, and continuous encroa-chments,” he said. 

“With no regulatory measures in place and no sewerage system in the villages adjoining the river from Nagole to Gowrelli, domestic wa-ste water and sewage find their way in thr-ough the nalas. Its present status is of an urban drainage-cum-sewerage system which puts off residents, tourists and investors,” he said.

With the ORR coming up, several satellite townships and important state and central government institutions have come up around the Musi, but the area has no sewerage system in place so domestic waste water and sewage flow into the nalahs. “In the total absence of natural flows, dry weather flow is stagnant with large scale hydro-flora gro-wth in the rivers,” Mr Rathod said. 

To combat this, “appropriate conservation measures are the urgent need of the hour”, he said, and as such the government has drafted the Musi Riverfront Development Project estimated to cost Rs 1,279 crore. 

Several attempts have been made in the past to reduce the pollution in the Musi river and rejuvenate the riverfront with funding assistance from the National River Conservation Directorate and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. These attempts were restricted to the portion of the river passing through core  Hyderabad. This project is planned along 37 km of the river.