HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has developed a mere 100 kilometres of sewerage network over a span of 20 years. Of the city’s sewerage lines spread over six zones, only two have the complete network in Old City areas south of River Musi.
The sewage network of Hyderabad was first developed in 1931 by Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya for a population of five lakh people spread over 54 square kilometres. There was a major remodelling in the core city involving a total network of 3,500 kilometres in 2010. Though 11 years have passed since then, the HMWS&SB has only recently embarked on strengthening the sewerage network in four zones of the core city at an estimated cost of Rs 1,240 crore.
According to official data, sewerage strengthening works have been going on along 33.56 km length at the cost of Rs 281 crore in areas including Tolichowki, Mehdipatnam, Asifnagar, Vijaynagar Colony, Nampally, Mallepally and Begum Bazaar; 36 km in localities like Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, SR Nagar, Ameerpet, Yousufguda and Khairatabad costing `535 crore; Amberpet, Narayanguda, Adikmet, Nallakunta and Ramanthapur localities involving Rs 130 crore; and Marredpally, Prakashnagar, Sitaphalmandi, Chilkalguda and Tarnaka at an expenditure of Rs 294 crore.
HMWS&SB has no sewerage network in 12 peripheral areas. The board has been completely relying on storm water drains to discharge sewerage. This resulted in death of four persons, including B. Shiva and N. Anthaiah, who went inside a storm water drain mixed with sewer for de-silting recently.
As per HMWS&SB's proposal, 355.93 km sewerage pipelines are yet to be laid in peripheral areas including Kukatpally, Quthbullapur, Ramachandrapuram, Patancheru, Alwal, Kapra, LB Nagar, Gaddiannaram, Malkajgiri, Uppal, Rajendranagar and Serilingampally at an estimated cost of Rs 3,067 crore.
A senior HMWS&SB official, requesting anonymity, told Deccan Chronicle that though the proposals had been made in 2015, most of them have just remained on paper for lack of funds. "In 30 years, the city has only got a 100 -km sewerage network through Centrally sponsored schemes like JNNURM and Janmabhoomi programme. The city is yet to get the trunk main even 12 years after merger of peripheral municipalities into GHMC area. In absence of trunk main, sewage can only be directed into storm water drains, posing a grave threat to labourers and residents living in neighbouring colonies,” the official pointed out.
