Heavy rains for more than a week this season have played havoc in Hyderabad in terms of traffic, damaged roads, and inundation of major corridors. However, when compared to the localities outside the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits, the inconvenience to the public has been less, partly owing to the completed stormwater drain works at some chronic inundation points.
East Anandbagh, which would face submergence every time it rained, is out of the woods now, thanks to the stormwater drainage provided to the area. A small portion of Shirdi Nagar was affected in the area. Likewise, the homes in Nadeem Colony of Tolichowki too were mostly saved from inundation this time.
The challenge, however, lies in areas outside GHMC, in the surrounding municipalities. Several colonies from these municipalities have faced issues of inundation for quite long, yet authorities appear to be taking a casual approach towards these.
One case in point is the network that feeds into Gurram Cheruvu, which created mayhem three years ago, during the floods of October, 2020, by drowning a large number of surrounding areas and resulting in deaths.
Shukur Sagar Lake, which is part of the same network, has flooded three colonies this time, Osman Nagar, Habeeb Nagar and Saif Colony Phase-2 in Jalpally municipality. The inundation is a seasonal phenomenon for the residents here, and some times when it rains copiously, the damage is more.
More areas are being added to the inundation list from the surrounding municipalities, such as the Medipally area from Peerzadiguda Municipal Corporation and a few other colonies from Boduppal Municipal Corporation.
While GHMC, with its huge revenue base, has a semblance of the solvency required to pay off the loans availed for completion of nala works taken up under Strategic Nala Development Programme (SNDP) post the devastation of 2020 floods, many of the surrounding municipalities do not. With the State government washing its hands of budgetary investment in city infrastructure, amelioration of the urban flooding situation seems a difficult task.
The SNDP Phase-I includes nala development works in five municipalities/corporations outside GHMC limits, Meerpet, Jalpally, Nizampet, Badangpet, and Kompally. The works were to be executed through GHMC.
For carrying out the project, 70% of the funds were to be through bank loans and 30% from the municipalities’ own revenues. Bank loan instalments as well as their own funding had to be routed through GHMC which was to be the executing agency.
The decision was opposed by all the municipalities except Nizampet, as it was unilaterally made by the State government without consultation with the urban local bodies.
“Two of the five ULBs let their refusal known to the State government through council resolutions. The remaining three made appeals to the government saying they cannot meet the expenditure as their revenues were meagre. Hence, the works could not be taken up for a long time,” explained an official under the condition of anonymity.
“A way out was conceived about a month ago, with the government deciding to use the funds owed by HMDA to the ULBs for creating of flood control infrastructure, thus paving way for the works to be taken up,” the official informed.
