Hyderabad: 'Officials to identify boundaries of Burhankhan Lake today'

Hyderabad: Following the instruction from Lokayukta, the Irrigation, Municipality and Revenue officials from Jalpally municipality are going to take up another drive to identify the full tank level (FTL) boundaries of the Burhankhan Lake that gobbled up several surrounding colonies during 2020 floods.

In July, the High Court had issued an order directing the officials to pull down structures that have come up in the FTL area of the lake and file a report on the action taken within four weeks while listing the matter till September.

Though the issue has not moved a muscle since then, for which the officials have attributed another spell of severe rains this year as the reason, the fresh call from the Lokayukta has compelled them to form a team and ascertain the FTL boundaries before placing the report of the action taken.

According to an official survey conducted in 2014, the Burhankhan Lake (Cheruvu) is a HMDA identified lake tagged with an ID No 33N and comes under Ventakapur village of Saroornagar mandal in Rangareddy district.

Though the FTL perimeter shows as 3107.150 metres, the water is spread in 78.231 acres with a bund length of 908.000 metres. The plan also shows that several compound walls lying within the FTL area.

Last week, a team of officials from Lokayukta visited the lake area to ascertain what measures the officials of Jalpally municipality have taken to flush out water from houses that saw inundation in 2020 floods.

It is said that, while hearing the matter, the Lokayukta recently asked the Jalpally municipality officials to identify the FTL boundaries of Burhankhan Lake first to probe their contention.

However, the irrigation officials are fully confident that they would easily be able to explain their position with the help of available data regarding the boundaries of FTL of the lake. "We have nothing to hide as everything is on the table. The boundaries have already been fixed, supported with coordinates, maps and measurements. We only have to identify them during the inspection day on Wednesday," said an official on the condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, the Irrigation and Municipal officials have formed a team and are gearing up to identify the FTL boundaries on Wednesday in compliance with the court order.