Hyderabad: Funds spent, lake still dirty

Hyderabad: There has never been a lack of money for cleaning up the Hussainsagar Lake. What is lacking is will power and expertise. Funds from various countries of the world have been pumped into the lake to keep it alive, but in vain.

Going by the accounts of civic bodies, the Australian government first gave close to Rs 10 crore and offered technological assistance. Close on its heels, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) gave Rs 310 crore between 2006 and 2012. The Netherlands Embassy has come forward with monetary assistance to the tune of Rs 74 crore for the Greater Hyderabad Environment Project. “The initial funds for the lake came in 1994, when the Centre had given Rs 694 crore to protect 10 lakes across the country, which included the Hussainsagar,” said a retired official of the erstwhile Hyderabad Urban Development Authority, requesting anonymity.

Civic officials seem to be least perturbed by the rising pollution levels in the lake. When contacted, GHMC commissioner D.S. Lokesh Kumar told Deccan Chronicle, that it is the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) that is concerned with the lake. Officials of the HMDA say that only JICA funds have been used to restore the lake.

“We have spent close to Rs 300 crore to set up sewage treatment plants (STPs) with a capacity of 50 million litres a day (MLD), a tertiary one. We used the money to divert effluents from entering the lake,” said HMDA’s chief engineer B.L.N Reddy.

Environmentalists such as Kalpana Ramesh are not amused. “There is a lot polluted sediment,on the lake bed. There is close to 2,000 MLD of sewage that goes into water bodies. If we think that we are safe, there can be nothing further from the truth,” she said. While committees were formed to save the lake, they are nothing more than money spinning models, she alleged.

Adding weight to her claim is a June 2019 report published by IIT-Hyderabad which noted: “Lake contamination by anthropogenic activities has become a serious threat to the aquatic ecosystem due to the presence of a high concentration of toxic heavy metals. In this study, a contaminated lake, Hussainsagar, was assessed for toxic heavy metal pollutants at sites associated with industrial discharges and idol immersion activities.” The study showed that heavy metals like cadmium, zinc and lead were existing on the lake bed. While Cadmium was 300-times higher than the permissible limit. Zinc and lead were five and six times higher than permissible limits.