Hyderabad: Each year, as winter disappears and another summer is preparing to take over on the horizon, a harrowing time begins for residents living along the Begumpet nala (drain). As the temperatures rises, stench from the nala that flows beneath the namesake flyover gives off a putrid stench.
The stench is so strong that even motorists who travel along the Begumpet Flyover get a whiff of stench that smells like rotting garbage, animal waste and other wastes, which are strewn into the nala by factories as well as some people living in homes along the nala.
“The stench keeps increasing day after day. Sometimes it just refuses to leave, even during the night. I wonder why there is no remedy for this menace?” asks Major (retd) Shiv Kiran, a resident of Kundanbagh.
The nala goes towards Balanagar, passing by Hyderabad Public School and into Hussain Sagar lake. “We presume that the stench that emanates from the lake is predominantly from industrial effluents that are dumped without being treated into it,” he said. While there was a plan to improve water in the lake five-years ago, dubbed the Hussain Sagar Catchment Improvement Plan (HCIP), nothing has come of it till date, and as the stench continues to persist.
“Every year the government claims to be doing its best to clean up the nala. But the stench is proof enough to prove their claims are false. It seems as if some department is trying to construct something along the low of the nala, which is not letting the stench settle down,” said B.V. Subba Rao, noted environmentalist. He alleged that there were chances that someone was dumping motor-grade batteries which were leaking into the nala.
