Musi river’s rubber dam ineffective

Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation had spent Rs 5.64 crore on a dam on the Musi River to impress the late Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, but in just three months it became unusable and is now a problem for the Musi Riverfront Development Corporation (MRDC) as it has become choked with huge amounts of solid waste.

The dam was built in 2009 using Austrian technology and was expected to hold enough water to flood the area behind it and recreate the magic of a river filled with water. It is now a breeding site for mosquitoes for 365 days a year and choked with sewage water. But it can be neither repaired nor removed. A corporation official claims that MRDC cannot remove the rubber dam since it would face audit issues. As per highly placed sources, the 80-metre rubber dam near the High Court was constructed as part of the Musi beautification project.

The authorities back then stopped the upstream sewage water for a few weeks and pumped in Godavari water to give the impression that the water quality of the Musi had improved and showed this to the then chief minister who visited the spot for 15 minutes. As soon as he left, the sewerage water was allowed to flow into the Musi again and its cascading effect damaged the dam within three months of its installation.

The purpose of a rubber dam is that during heavy inflows, the dam can be deflated by pumping out the water to let the floodwaters flow out instead of leaking onto the embankments. It has a capacity of 2.6 lakh litres and needs three hours to inflate and one hour to deflate.

Residents of Ziaguda, Puranapul, Jumerath Bazaar, Bahadurpura, Sai Nagar, Chaderghat, Chudi Bazaar, Nayapul and other nearby localities are struggling with the mosquito menace that has descended on them because of the dam.

A senior MRDC official admitted to this newspaper that the dam has become troublesome as it is choked with solid waste and is of no use now. He also said that the technology is outdated and experts to repair it are not available. The dam should be removed but this will create audit issues.  

The official said that the MRDC has removed about 60 per cent of the material choking the dam but that too has been to no purpose. “It has been testing our nerves at regular intervals,” he added.