No hyacinth, civic body sets out to clear them
GHMC officials list lakes which have been cleaned up.
Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has floated tenders worth Rs 4 crore to clear water hyacinth in lakes which have already been cleared or those in which there is no water hyacinth at all.
GHMC surveys found that 85 of 185 lakes in the city are badly infested by the weed. Water hyacinth has occupied 1,827 acres in these 85 lakes, and the GHMC needs Rs 1,845 crore to clear them.
The corporation has decided to clear 36 lakes in Phase I at an estimated cost of Rs 10 crore.
According to highly placed sources, eight lakes had no hyacinth at all but were included in the first list with Tender ID 66653.
Another 12 lakes listed in Tender ID 66493 do not have as much hyacinth as estimated by the GHMC. These lakes were recently using MP and MLA funds.
Sources said the GHMC has invited two tenders to clear hyacinth in Saroornagar lake costing Rs 5,88,525. The corporation has fixed a timeframe of three years.
A senior GHMC official told this newspaper that the corporation was clueless about the manipulation in the tenders process.
The official said that civic body would remove the lakes from where hyacinth had been cleared.
The official said the issue would be taken to the notice of top officials to take action on GHMC officers and contractors indulging in such irregularities to swindle public money.