Deficit rainfall in Balapur viewed as a ‘gift in disguise by officials

Rangareddy: Hearing about a deficit rainfall in the area may upset the people of any other place but the residents of the Osman Nagar area in Balapur mandal under Rangareddy district as well as the authorities in Jalpally and Badangpet municipalities took it as a blessing in disguise.

Both the officials and the local public often found themselves stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea after the rain lashed Osman Nagar, an area submerged in Venkatapuram Lake for two years. Tugged between the Jalpally and Badangpet municipalities on the city outskirts, the Balapur mandal shares the boundaries with both the urban local bodies and so far received a mere 370.7 mm rainfall since the onset of the monsoon this year as against the cumulative normal rainfall of 573.7 mm as on date.

With this, Balapur slips down to the last position in the list of a total of 27 mandals in the district with -35.4 percent of deficit rainfall. Surprisingly, Balapur is the only mandal in all the 27 mandals of the Rangareddy district that received deficit rainfall ever since the monsoon set into motion.

According to official statistics, a total number of 14 mandals received excess rainfall, 12 received normal and only one Balapur mandal received deficit rains this year in the district.

The officials and the staff from revenue to the municipality in Jalpally area said they have to remain vigilant during the rainy season as their mobile phones start blaring to register a myriad number of complaints regarding inundation of streets full of houses with just the slightest spell of rain every year. “We can not sit in peace for a moment after a few minutes of rain in the Osman Nagar area,” said an official on the condition of anonymity. “The houses in the Osman Nagar area are still submerged in lake water. While most of the fully submerged houses are vacant, the families living close to the water body started making calls to inform us about the swelling water level playing havoc in the area after rains and this compelled us to roll up our sleeves and jump into the troubled water.” Having been known for its brazen level of encroachments on water bodies and waterways like flood flow canals, Jalpally earned a moniker as a bastion of land grabbers with scores of government lands already turned into habitations while the remaining are languishing in legal issues.

Not just the officials, but even the people of the affected area are found frightened over hearing the whisper of the clouds.

While recounting the ordeal he went through in the past, Mohd Amjad, a resident of Osman Nagar said, “We always found ourselves under a waist-deep of water every time the rain lashes the area.”

“The water gushed inside the houses and displaced us from the abode and turned the whole thing into a messy affair in a fraction of a moment. We have to set our houses again into order by recollecting the scattered belongings displaced during the fury played by the rain and the swelling water.”