Osmansagar, Himayatsagar may meet the same fate of Hussainsagar, fear officials

If GO 111 is scrapped, the twin reservoirs are likely to meet the fate of Hussainsagar which has become completely polluted and its water unfit for consumption.

Courtesy by : THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS Twitter By S Bachan Jeet Singh

HYDERABAD: With Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announcing in the Assembly that GO 111 would be scrapped as it has become redundant, both serving and retired officials expressed concern over the serious impact on the 100-year-old twin reservoirs Osmansagar and Himayatsagar due to the imminent large-scale urbanisation within the 10 km buffer zone. 

About 1,32,000 acres covering 84 villages in the mandals of Shamshabad, Shabad, Rajendranagar, Chevella, Moinabad and Shankarapally, which hold huge real estate potential owing to their proximity to IT corridors, come under the purview of GO 111, issued on March 8, 1996. If GO 111 is scrapped, the twin reservoirs are likely to meet the fate of Hussainsagar which has become completely polluted and its water unfit for consumption. The GO was issued mainly to stop construction activities like industries, major hotels, residential colonies and other polluting establishments within the 10 km radius of the reservoirs.

The reservoirs are the major drinking water source for the people of the twin cities even today as Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMSW&SB) draws 30 million gallons of water per day (MGD) from them through gravity. 

Official sources told Express that lifting of GO 111 will prove to be a death knell for these two reservoirs as large scale constructions will come up within the 10 km radius leading to urbanisation and the sewage generated from residential apartments, gated communities and  buildings will flow into these two reservoirs.

Constructions will also block flow of rainwater from catchment areas into the reservoirs. Lifting of the ban on constructions would also increase commercial engagements, transform the residential projects in the nearby villages and chances are that it would threaten the ecological balance through encroachments and pollution.

A retired officer said that Bharat Ratna awardee Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya had designed these reservoirs as Flood Protection Reservoirs to deal with floods in Musi and later used as drinking water sources for the city. The government should drop the idea of scrapping the GO 111, he said.