Hyderabad: Next time you visit Mir Alam lake, there is no need to wear that grimace. Instead you can take a deep breath and enjoy the sylvan surroundings. The lake is on the path to recovery and in a month its water will be as good as drinking water.

Thanks to the Rs. 20 crore Tertiary Treatment Plant set up by the HUDA, there is a vast improvement in water quality. There is a drop in the values of biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen and phosphorous."We are fine-tuning the plant and hope to attain required levels of treated effluents", said Vivek Deshmukh, chief engineer, HUDA.

Trial runs on

The 10 MLD plant is not yet commissioned but trial runs have been on for more than a month. I is one of the 18 highly polluted lakes identified by HUDA. Till 1958 the tank was a source of drinking water to the city. The seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, was so fond of the lake that he carried its water wherever he went. Named after the then Prime Minister of Hyderabad, Mir Alam, the lake is a wonderful paradigm of engineering comprising 21 piers and masonry multiple arch dam with overflow arrangements. But over the years it has become highly polluted with sewage from residential areas flowing into its catchment area spread over 15.30 sq.km. Upstream lakes such as Noor Mohd. Kunta and Shivarampally cheruvu also add to the contamination.

For protection of the Mir Alam tank a 30 feet wide bund is constructed for a length of 6.7 km with a chain link fencing. "We have adopted extended aeration system with fine prone defused membrane which generates minimum quantity of gases. So there will be no odour at all", Mr. Deshmukh said.

No aquatic life

Presently the suspended solids in the raw sewage are 492 mg/l (million grams per litre). It is proposed to be brought down to less than 6 mg/l. Now, the lake has zero dissolved oxygen and so there is no chance of survival of aquatic life. This may change soon.

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