Hyderabad: Plight of a sorrow lake in Saroornagar

Saroornagar: Once a pristine lake, the Saroornagar lake has turned into a mosquito breeding ground, raising health concerns in the neighbourhoods of Singareni Colony, Saraswati Nagar and other surrounding areas.

Several proposals from the civic authorities to restore the purity of the lake have failed to materialise and developments of any sort have remained a distant dream. Originally, the water body covered an area of 98 acres, but its size shrank by 20 per cent in the recent decades owing to rampant encroachments. At present, the entire lake is covered with water hyacinth and also turned into a dumping ground for trash and gets flooded sewerage from nearby localities. The residents of surrounding areas are regularly representing the situation about the worsening condition of the lake from to the authorities, but in vain, they deplore. "Earlier this lake had 2 to 3 feet deep water and at present it is in a very bad condition.

The surroundings of the lake are now covered with sewage water. Due to that, there is an increasing menace of mosquitoes and foul smell. Two years back, the State government had promised to take up the lake cleaning and development works. The officials concerned only visit the lake but don't put any constructive efforts," rued Sai Kumar, a resident of Saroornagar.

"For past one year, volunteers like us are cleaning the lake. We have stopped cleaning works at the lake due to the current pandemic situation. Also, after the recent heavy downpour and floods in the city, the condition of the lake only worsened further.

There is a knee-jerk reaction from officials whenever we take up the issue. Local leaders, GHMC and irrigation department officials visit the spot, but no visible development is seen and lake's condition remains the same. It is high time the State government started development and cleaning works at the lake," demanded Prashanth, a volunteer of Helping Hands Humanity. Zonal Commissioner of LB Nagar, Upender Reddy, was not available for comment