Polluting firms identified: KT Rama Rao

Hyderabad: About 100 pollution-causing industries located in the city would be shifted to the outskirts in three months, said industries minister K.T. Rama Rao.

He told the Assembly on Thursday that about 1,234 industries located under GHMC limits were identified for shifting in a phased manner.

As many as 300 bulk drug companies in the city would be shifted to the Hyderabad Pharma City. Mr Rao said world-class common effluent treatment plants would be set up on outskirts.

About pollution in city lakes, he said, “Of the 185 lakes under the GHMC limits, 20 will be develop-ed at a cost of Rs 287 crore this year. These will be cleaned, besides beautification works taken up.”

“Shifting of pollution-causing industries from the city doesn’t mean that we are creating pollution problem on city outski-rts. We have identified ni-ne locations beyond Out-er Ring Road for shifting these industries where common effluent treatment plants are being developed. This will prevent pollution on city outskirts,” he added.

Mr Rao said the government would not allow environment and water bodies to be polluted for the sake of industries.

“We are acting very tough against violators. For the first time, we have shut down 13 polluting industries in Balanagar and Jeedimetla. This will be a continuous process,” he said. 

Lakes in the city, including Hussainsagar, had over the years been expo-sed to various outlets, including sewerage, resu-lting their getting polluted heavily.

“We are now constructing diversion drains for diverting sewerage water from entering into lakes and construction of wetland ponds to obstruct floating debris and putting up silt traps,” he said.

Industries had been directed to construct separate drains for storm water/rain water and effluents.

The government would speed up Hussainsagar cleaning and had floated tenders for this. “The water quality in Hussain-sagar reached satisfactory level by September 2017 due to measures taken by us in preventing sewerage from entering the lake. But the drainage pipeline burst at NTR Marg soon after, forcing us to divert the drainage water again into the lake with no other option left. With this, the lake got polluted again,”  Mr Rao added.

Bill to strengthen local bodies introduced

The Telangana government introduced two crucial Bills in the Legisla-tive Assembly on Thursday.

The first pertained to Telangana Panchayat Raj Bill 2018 and the second the Telangana Municipal Rules Amendment Bill 2018. As many as 22 new municipalities would be created on city outskirts alone. Both Bills would be passed on Thursday after debate in the House.

Under PR Act, it would be direct elections for sa-rpanches and new gram panchayats would be created.

The Municipal Bill was aimed at creating new municipalities, besides merging surrounding villages in existing municipalities and municipal corporations to strengthen urban local bodies and ensure planned development of urban areas.
The Bill proposed creating an additional 71 mu-nicipalites, besides merging 136 villages with 41 existing nagar panchayats. At present, TS has 72 urban local bodies. It was also proposed to merge 173 villages with newly created 71 municipalities.

On city outskirts alone, nine municipalities were created in Ranga Reddy district which included Shamshabad, Turkayan-jal, Manikonda, Narsingi, Bandlaguda Jagir, Adib-atla, Shankarpally, Tukk-uguda and Amangal.

In Medchal-Malkajgiri district, 13 new municipalities were created, which included Jawahar-nagar, Dammayiguda, Nagaram, Pocharam, Gh-atkesar, Gundlapochamp-ally, Tumkunta, Nizamp-et, Bachupally, Pragathi-nagar, Kompally, Bowra-mpet and Dundigal.

The PR Act proposed to create 4,380 new gram panchayats taking the total number to 12,741 and wards to 1,13,270.