Hyderabad: HYDRAA on Friday demolished four villas in Neknampur lake, part of Rangareddy district's Manikonda municipality, that were said to be in the full tank level (FTL) and buffer zone of Ibrahim Cheruvu, also known as Pedda Cheruvu.
Two other structures were spared due to a pending writ petition in the High Court.
Each structure, part of Lake View Villas, cost nearly Rs 2 crore. The 13 villas were each built on 350-400 square yards with ground-plus-two structures.
Despite Manikonda municipality earlier cancelling permissions for these constructions, work on the villas continued. On Thursday, HYDRAA commissioner A. V. Ranganath conducted an on-site inspection and expressed anger over the blatant violations.
On Friday, authorities came with police protection and DRF personnel, to prevent any obstruction to HYDRAA’s work.
A resident said "Last year, officials demolished the structures for being on the FTL of the lake. But within days, they began rebuilding the houses."
With regard to the two structures that were spared on Friday, their owners had filed a writ petition in the Telangana High Court in December last, stating that HYDRAA had tried to demolish their structures “without issuing any notice and without ascertaining any reasons as arbitrary or illegal”. The petitioners requested the court to direct HYDRAA to cease and desist its operations with regard to their properties.
The High Court, on December 2, directed HYDRAA, Manikonda municipality and the state government to maintain status quo until further orders. But by then, a structure was partially demolished by the Manikonda municipality.
“They already demolished a few walls of one house, but the petitioners came forward with the stay orders before they could demolish the entire structure, and the municipal authorities backed away”, said a local resident.
HYDRAA authorities said that they hadn’t touched the structures whose owners had secured stay orders, but were working on informing the court of the status.
A HYDRAA official stated that the Manikonda irrigation and revenue authorities, in March 2024, had demolished the villas for being on the FTL and buffer zones of Ibrahimbagh lake, but the construction had resumed.
