Hyderabad: Land sharks swallowing Jalpally Lake area ruffles officials' feathers

Hyderabad: Following a proposal to promote Jalpally Lake under 'Lake Beautification Programme' – that includes a rock garden featuring sculptures of mammals and vertebrates alongside the water body, the efforts to encroach upon the embanking areas of the lake has increased putting the municipality and Revenue officials on their toes.

The Jalpally Lake under Balapur mandal spreads over an area of 274 acres and shares the boundaries with Mailardevpally under Rajendranagar. After learning of a flagrant level of encroachments over the lake, the government has proposed to turn the lake into a thriving tourist spot and even sanctioned a fund to the tune of Rs 9 crores for developing several amusement facilities around the water body.

However, in order to claim that the land is completely out of the purview of FTL (Full Tank Level), few vested interests have started dumping landfill on a lake site in Sy.No 6, Jalpally village under Jalpally Municipality and have raised the surface to some extent allegedly with a 'Mala Fide' intention that raised many eyebrows in the area. Learning about the same, the officials of the municipality raise the issue with the MRO Balapur for necessary action. Based on the report, the VRO Balapur mandal office visited the spot and booked a case against the encroachers for dumping dismantled in FTL of the water body. Later, the MRO Balapur also lodged a formal complaint with Pahadi Shareef Police Station against three persons accusing them of tampering with the FTL area of the water body.

"Upon knowing the incident, our VRO visited the spot-on Monday and found that landfill is being dumped under the FTL area of the lake under Sy. No 6 of Jalpally village. We registered a case in this regard and even lodged a formal complaint with the Pahadi Shareef Police against three persons for dumping dismantled under the FTL area. We will take all preventive measures to safeguard the lake from encroachments as the government is committed to promote the water body as a tourist spot for which several measures were already taken to ground the project," Informed D Srinivas Reddy Mandal Revenue Officer Balapur.

"Upon knowing about the encroachment, we soon brought the matter to the notice of MRO for necessary action. The land comes under the FTL limits of the water body. Actually, few people are raising crops under FTL after securing FTL pattas for agricultural purposes only. However, anticipating that they might lose the land if the government promotes the area as a tourist stop in the future, three people have tried to raise the surface by dumping landfill to ensure that the raised height would be considered as a land of the FTL boundaries when the official holds a survey. However, the coordinated measures of officials from the municipality and the revenue have prevented the encroachers from moving ahead with their 'void-ab-initio attempt'," said GP Kumar, Commissioner Jalpally Municipality.

Only last month the government has approved Rs 9 crores for the beautification of Jalpally Lake by converting the water body into a tourist hot spot featuring a rock garden, park, walkway, and food courts covering the entire lake boundaries. It is said that the idea behind turning Jalpally into a tourist hot spot is a brainchild of Minister for Education Sabita Indra Reddy.

Following the approval of the project, she held a review meeting with the revenue and HMDA officials to discuss land allotment for the rock garden at the lake. During the meeting, she instructed the revenue officials of Balapur to hand over 5 acres of land to officials of HMDA to ground the project. It is against this background the officials go into huddle frequently to hasten the process and ensure the speedy transition of the land to promote the project.