The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is making plans to expand the stormwater drain near Lingampally Railway underpass to find a permanent solution for the frequent flooding of the road even after moderate rain.
Inundation of the road under the bridge was one of the many reasons for heavy traffic jams in Serilingampally, and during a recent spell of heavy rains, the traffic police had to shut down the road between Lingampally and Gachibowli due to heavy waterlogging.
GHMC authorities are still weighing their options between expansion of the existing stormwater channel and construction of a new RCC box drain alongside the existing channel.
The existing drain is proving to be insufficient to carry the excess water from the Chakalivani Cheruvu upstream which gets its inflows from the surplus drain of the Gopi Cheruvu. While Gopi Cheruvu is spread over 71 acres, the present extent of Chakalivani Cheruvu is only 16.2 acres, which results in abundant overflows every time it rains heavily.
The existing surplus drain is of six feet width, and flows through a culvert to the other side of the road, from where it meanders to a great length, partly open and partly closed, before merging into the Manjeera river. While the width of the drain in Lingampally had been enough to carry the flows before the area got populated, it is not the case anymore.
Several colonies have come up surrounding the two lakes, which has turned the area densely populated. Due to this, the stormwater run-off has increased abundantly, rendering the existing infrastructure inadequate.
The stormwater drain needs to be enhanced to at least 15 feet in width, says the legislator of the Serilingampally constituency A. Gandhi, adding that an RCC box drain needs to be laid to circumvent the shifting of utilities such as electricity poles and water supply lines.
