Telangana: Osmansagar encroached for road

Hyderabad: It looks like the Telangana state government wants to permanently stop drawing water from Osmansagar, the city’s oldest man-made reservoir that has provided water to Hyderabad for decades.

Many preferred water from here and from Himayatsagar because of its taste. The existing narrow Gandipet to Shankarpally road is being widened and the area on which the road is to be laid was once the lakebed. Besides this, the HMDA website displays 108 fresh encroachments identified at Osmansagar but they called the road-widening a development. Following a complaint, DC reader O.M. Debara, an engineer and environmentalist, visited the site.

“Once a lakebed, it is now being dug up to widen the road. There is a huge board that reads ‘R&B department — Go slow, deep excavation’. This is being done a few yards to the present water spread. This is entirely a lakebed area,” he said.

Rs 75 crore allotted for road project
The Roads & Building department is spending Rs 75 crore to widen the 23-km-long Gandipet-Shankarpally road. The existing 10-metre-wide road is being widened for a four-lane carriage way, 20 metres in width, with dividers. Minister for Roads and Buildings Tummala Nageswara Rao said, “We are not extending any road, but widening the existing road which was laid by the Nizams.” The work, which started in September, will be completed by July.