Hyderabad: Desilt Kapra Lake immediately, urge social activists & locals

♦    Residents urge authorities including GHMC and Irrigation Department, to take action

♦    Lack of desilting, installation of septic tanks, and wetland conservation are pressing concerns

Hyderabad: Alike majority of the lakes in the city which have been buried under concrete structures or turned into toxic water bodies, the Kapra Lake has also been turning turbid. As a result, to protect the lake from getting even more murky, a few social activists and locals take up the initiative to clean the lake every Sunday and urged the authorities to de-silt the lake at the earliest.

The lake which was originally spread over 113 acres has shrunk to only 30 acres due to encroachment. Despite last year’s heavy downpour, 70 percent of the lake is dry and barren, leading to the depilation of groundwater levels around the lake. Bore wells will also soon go dry if the sewage inflow is not reconnected. However, on humanitarian grounds, few locals have taken up Sharamdaan programmes to clean the lake.

“Cleaning up the lake is not a permanent solution, we have started the Sharamdaan (cleanness drive) in April this year, every Sunday we organised this drive, we started the process of cleaning with 10 members and slowly the number has now gone up to 150. Everyone have voluntarily come forward to clean the lake to revive it. But this is not the solution, last year we had good rains, then also hardly there is water in the lake, where the water is going, why water is not been de-silted, there are many government bodies that including GHMC, Irrigation Department and few more) who are supposed to work together for saving the lake but no one is doing anything. Basically, we want to save the lake, we are doing it symbolically as we want state government attention,” said Manognya Reddy, a resident of Sainikpuri.

“About 70 percent of the lake has dried up over the last several years. The lake requires urgent attention. GHMC should de-silt the lake and also install septic tanks, so that sewage water that is coming from the nearby colonies if the septic tank gets installed then the polluted water will get treated in the tank and will directly flow into the lake. The irrigation department had a plan to purify water and to develop a bird sanctuary, as part of wetland conservation but nothing has happened. Despite of the city receiving ample amount of rainfall last monsoon then also hardly the lake was filled,” said Deepa Shailendra, another resident of Sainikpuri.

Kapra Lake at present has turned into a small pond, it is dying due to litigation by outlying colonies. The irrigation department had concrete plans for greywater conversion of sewage inflow by phytoremediation/ bioremediation methods. Why are they not being implemented? she added.