Hyderabad: Osman Nagar Lake bund work gains pace

Hyderabad: With the commencement of reconstruction works of Osman Nagar Lake bund – that breached during last year's deluge and left a trail of destruction in nearby areas, the residents living around the water body feel a sigh of relief at least for now though lot more has to be done to put the things in order in the flood-hit areas.

For the last one year, the Jalpally municipality cut out for the task to flush out water from the inundated areas to provide succour to the people living nearby in dire straits. This includes spending funds to the tune of several lakhs to lay a separate pipeline at the Venkatapuram area and to reconstruct the bund to prevent water from flowing freely into surrounding areas.

"As an impromptu measure, a 540 meters long bund is being reconstructed with a cost of around Rs 20 lakhs sanctioned by the district collector Rangareddy on the representation of Minister for Education P Sabitha Indra Reddy and the MP Asad Owaisi. This would someway help the lake to hold back the water flowing freely into nearby localities. We are hopeful that the situation like last year will not convulse again this time and everything will improve gradually," said Abdallah Sadi, Chairman Jalpally Municipality.

The government also planned to promote a walking track around the Osman Nagar Lake fully protected with fencing with a cost of Rs 9 crore as a part of a new beautification project around the lake. This would help the local people enjoy walking over the lakeside every day in the morning. Though only walking track works have taken up, the fencing work with gates on two sides will be completed soon, he added.

The Jalpally municipality after coming into existence in the year 2016, has faced its first-ever difficult situation in October last year when the incessant rains left several water bodies on both the sides on the Firangi Nala – flowing all the way from Vikarabad District, completely brimmed and broken causing a heavy deluge especially in Osman Nagar Lake.

The colonies that were severely affected due to a swarming flood last year includes Osman Nagar, Saif Colony, Habeeb Colony, Saif-II, Abdallah Yahya Nagar, American Township in Jalpally area, and Venkatapur on the Badangpet side. All these colonies together carry around six thousand houses embanking the lake.