State to Renew 4,234 Lakes in Urban Areas

Hyderabad: Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) principal secretary M. Dana Kishore said that a series of measures were underway to rejuvenate 4,234 lakes in the urban areas of the state.

Speaking at a workshop, ‘Lake Protection and Rejuvenation in Urban Areas’, on Tuesday, he said: “Lake restoration is crucial in maintaining the water table's equilibrium.”

He said the MA&UD department is giving top priority for the protection and conservation of lakes, especially in urban areas. Lake protection committees were constituted to protect and improve lakes and their catchments.

The workshop was attended by GHMC Commissioner Ronald Rose, municipal administration, D. Divya, NGOs, and members who work for water conservation in the city.

According to MA&UD officials, many lakes in the state, especially in urban areas, have been encroached on and polluted as a result of rapid urbanisation.

Meanwhile, to improve the groundwater levels, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has taken up the 'shallow aquifer recharge project' on a pilot basis.

This task has been taken up under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), an programme under the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).

As part of the project, five injection borewells around 100 feet to 120 feet will be drilled in five municipal parks, and water will be pumped out into the shallow aquifers.

Due to this project, the layers of soil will get recharged during rains collecting water from the surrounding watershed and channelling the water through recharge pits, said GHMC.

On Tuesday, an awareness programme was held at the Kakatiyanagar Colony Park at Habsiguda. According to the corporation officials, this lung space has a watershed area of 6,85,738 square metres with a capacity of the watershed of 44.6 crore litres, with an annual rainfall potential of 53 lakh litres.