Hyderabad: Wadi-e-Saleheen, another filthy slum in Jalpally municipality

Rajendranagar: Claims of ratcheting up civic amenities in areas abutting Hyderabad, specially in Jalpally municipality, contradict with the way unwholesome situation is prevailing there. People in most wards are forced to live with multiple unresolved issues for years. Eschewing any mention of Wadi-e-Saleheen in Ward 10 would be obviously unjust.

Cart-track roads, narrow streets with sewage passing in lanes, messy corners with heaps of garbage and dangling wires over electric poles are scenes which paint a gloomy picture of the colony.

As no sewage or storm water lines are available, most streets are seen overthrowing filth, while children playing before their houses close to it dangerously exposing them to numerous diseases. It is difficult to find a single street without scattered trash, stink and filth emanating from houses.

Explaining the unhygienic conditions, Syed Haji Shah, a resident, said, "No regular sanitation; heaps of garbage at street corners make the area more vulnerable to seasonal diseases. The less said about mosquito menace. People say they are stung each moving during winter." Expressing concern over changing weather conditions, breeze turning into rain, Syed Zubair, another resident, said, "with light rain on Thursday morning colony streets turned into ponds of filth. Open furrows start gushing out cutting road connectivity to other areas for hours."

"More inclement weather means more cases of seasonal diseases," he said, adding that "Wadi-e-Saleheen and Green City are colonies standing very close to Burhankhan Lake, also known as Osman Nagar Lake. "No proper delimitation of areas led to the situation, as all densely populated slum areas on the city outskirts have been merged to form Jalpally municipality in 2016. As a result, the municipality turned in to a gigantic slum enclave with numerous civic issues.

There is a need to divide the municipality between the GHMC on the north and neighbouring municipalities in the south to ensure holistic development of the areas in the Jalpally municipality," suggested Samad Bin Siddiq, a senior Congress leader of the area.