Neknampur Lake Restoration Gets NITI Aayog Recognition

HYDERABAD: It is hope amid despair. Even as official apathy is leading to the slow death of many lakes in the city, a glimmer of hope has come in the form of NITI Aayog recognition for Neknampur lake. It has been identified as a role model for ‘best restoration practices’ in the country.

In the compendium of ‘Best practices in water management 3.0’ Neknampur has been recognized as a role model in the ‘watershed development’ category along with four other projects in the country.

The lake’s restoration was undertaken in 2016 by the city-based NGO Dhruvansh organisation, which promotes integrated wetland management systems for cleaning urban lakes.

The lake, spread over 25 acres in Manikonda municipality, was so neglected that it was almost non-existent having been reduced to a dump yard for debris, garbage, outlet for sewage and covered in water hyacinth, and an easy prey for land grabbers.

The NGO’s objective was to restore the lake and biodiversity, increase water retention capacity and create a recreational place and installation of biological STP. They adopted phytoremediation and bioremediation to purify water, desilting, floating treatment wetlands installation and maintenance, ecological beds, solar floating aerators and floating bikes to remove floating garbage in the lake water.

The interventions resulted in 90% reduction in the BOD, thanks to maintenance of the treatment system.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Madhulika Choudhary, founder of Dhruvansh, said, “The restoration and rejuvenation of the lake was a tedious task to begin with. It included starting from cleaning the lake involving several departments. Also, as the lake is on the border of Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts, it was difficult for official works to get going. However, the cleaning process continued and in 2018 we started the floating wetland treatment to address the issue of water hyacinth”.

Integrated wetland management system was at the core of the revival while equal focus was on creating a natural ecosystem.

As part of the Haritha Haram programme, around one lakh trees were planted by the NGO in its bid to restore the health of soil and water, which was marred due to sewage water inflow from Manikonda and Narsingi into the lake.

From extremely low levels of BOD and COD, today the situation has been so transformed that 150 water tankers are filled with downstream bore wells, which get water from the lake and supply them in the city.

“The biodiversity has been restored with more than 2000 turtles, peacocks, mongoose, dragonflies and other fauna. The lake has also become a community and recreational centre for local residents, something unthinkable in 2016”, said Madhulika.

The way forward is in declaring Neknampur lake as a ‘biodiversity zone’ while the government should come up with a Lake Act to preserve lakes from extinction.

Meanwhile, watershed development to address water scarcity in five villages by the national agro foundation and Novartis was recognized in the ‘wastewater management and reuse category’.

The project, which was taken up in 2021, aimed at improving availability of drinking water, better sanitation and capacity-building for farmers. It resulted in a 50-60% increase in water availability in the villages and an increase in ground water by 10 feet, which helped benefit around 2000 families.