TAKING STOCK: The dried up Himayatsagar lake being inspected by MLAs and MPs in Hyderabad on Tuesday. — PHOTO: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: After years of criminal apathy and being mute witnesses to the havoc wrought on the Himayatsagar and Osmansagar catchment areas by rampant encroachments, a high-level committee of city legislators and MPs have mooted the creation of a Catchment Area Regulation Authority (CARA) to save the dying reservoirs.

Only it appeared a case of too little way too late.

Armed with GO Ms No. 111 prohibiting construction activity in a 10 k.m. radius of the reservoirs, five agencies HUDA, HMWSSB, Revenue, Town Planning and local gram panchayats were monitoring the catchment areas, but to no avail.

"They have failed miserably in the task owing to lack of coordination. The setting up of an agency to deal exclusively with problems pertaining to catchment areas of Himayatsagar and Osmansagar is the need of the hour," Information and Public Relations Minister Mohd. Ali Shabbir said here on Tuesday.

He was speaking after a daylong tour of the catchment areas of the Himayatsagar lake, one of the age-old source of drinking water for the twin cities, along with all the city legislators and MPs to assess the damage done to the reservoirs' inflows following years of encroachments in the name of development.

No data

The proposal would be put forth to Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. A Special Officer would head CARA to look into various issues, be it legal, farmers' problems or environmental.

Asked about the extent of damage and the number of villages, townships and encroachments that had come up, the Minister conceded that there was no data whatsoever.

But it was evident from the visit to various villages along the river course that the destruction of the catchment areas was full and complete and obstacles for inflows into the reservoirs far too many. There were 84 villages in the 10 k.m. radius, but most of them had assumed urban avatar with hundreds of concrete structures coming up. Unabated quarrying in gross violation of GO 111 also dealt a deathblow.

Mr. Shabbir listed out a 15 per cent increase in area under agriculture, another 15 per cent of lands turning into farmhouses, 10 per cent going for landscaping and a staggering 300 per cent increase in groundwater exploitation as some of the reasons for inflows not reaching Himayatsagar.

The construction of a series of check dams, 780 in all, and percolation tanks all along the course during Telugu Desam Government's `Neeru Meeru' programme also dealt a serious blow to the inflow volumes. "Some of them were useful to farmers, but those on main feeder channels have adversely affected Himayatsagar."

`False affidavit'

Charminar legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi retorted saying the ongoing Outer Ring Road phase I works and 70 per cent of the Shamshabad International Airport land were located in the heart of the Himayatsagar catchment area. "The Government filed a false affidavit in the court saying ORR does not fall under the Himayatsagar catchment area," he alleged.

MPs Anjankumar Yadav, P. Madhu, legislators P. Janardhana Reddy, G. Kishen Reddy, N. Narsimha Reddy, M. Ranga Reddy, T. Padma Rao, Moazam Khan, Mumtaz Ahmed Khan called for stringent implementation of GO No. 111.

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