Sewage, weeds choke Langar Houz Lake

Hyderabad: A visit to the historic Langar Houz lake exposes the prevailing condition with sewage water flowing into the lake from the surrounding localities. The lake that was spread in some 42 acres and has now shrunk in half due to the residential areas that came up on the lake bed. The lake has 10 major encroachments.

Moreover, the lake is covered with water hyacinth and algal weeds, leading to the eutrophication of the lake. While the lake has been walled, residents say at many places this has been wrecked. The walls were smashed at several points because of people living in surrounding areas to the back of the lake which do not have any access point.

As per the official data, the Langar Houz Lake spreads in an area of 24.871 acres as per survey in 2014, and the area of the lake boundary is 38.013 acres. The FTL of the lake is 100m and the bund length was 1449.184. However, from 38 acres, now it has been reduced to hardly 24 acres and still the lake is being encroached and construction activity is going on at fast pace.

A Full Tank Level (FTL) is the maximum amount of water that the lake is designed to hold, and this stretch is known as the Buffer Zone.

Mohammed Osman Al Hajri, a resident of Tolichowki said that the remaining lake that is spread over 24 acres is fast turning into a construction waste and garbage dumping ground, with tons of waste being dumped in it. The water hyacinth covers the entire lake. Many projects were taken up by the civic authorities to preserve the lake, but it still remains in a terrible condition.

The Langar Houz lake is surrounded by four residential colonies where rainwater inundates during monsoon. Still, the land sharks are attempting to encroach further by dumping construction waste.

“In the year 2000, 2008, 2020 and 2021 the residents faced massive flooding. The main problem here is that the lake has shrunk as they have been occupied and houses have come up. There is no outlet for backwaters to exit and this results in flooding of these areas. Also, there is a narrowing of the inlet due to rampant constructions and encroachments,” said Osman.

“When land sharks keep on dumping construction debris on the banks of the lake over time, people get a plot of land that a real estate agent can sell off at a cheap rate. This is how several of the colonies surrounding the Langar Houz lake came into existence,” he adds.