What Made Hyderabad Floods Go Worse?

After Mumbai and Gurgaon, Hyderabad is witnessing the monsoon mayhem as torrential rains flooded most part of the city in the past few days. Thousands of commuters were left stranded for hours due to knee-deep waters on key arterial roads, especially the one that connects Begumpet to Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills.

The city, it would appear, is ill prepared to deal with a flood-like situation. Clogged water outlets only made the matters worse. For instance, potholed roads and dirty drains in areas around Alwal have caused flooding in eight surrounding colonies. Despite multiple complaints to the civic authority, no action was taken.  

This is not something new in this part of the city.

According to G V Rao, general secretary, Greater Alwal Allied Service Association, despite allocation of funds worth Rs 30 crore for cleaning of tunnels from the state government, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has taken no action. “The tunnels are full of filth which resulted in flooding of nearby colonies even during slight rainfall,” Rao says.

Colonies such as Anandraonagar, Bharati Nagar Colony, Srinivasa Nagar Colony Phase-1 and Phase-2, Harijan Basti, Reddy Enclave and Prasanth Nagar were badly flooded as the storm-water drain inundated. This frequent flooding has harrowed the residents and has forced them to serve legal notice to the authority. If their plea remains unanswered, the citizens would move civil court.

On its part, the GHMC, which stood at the 22^nd position in 2017's Swacch Survekshan, is citing funding issues for not looking into the matter. GHMC Commissioner B Janardhan Reddy has told media that flooding is the consequence of encroachment on the nalas. At several places, these 12-metre-wide drains, responsible for carrying the dirty water, have now shrunk to two-metre.

Over 12,000 illegal structures have been identified along the nalas across the city which has to be removed. In another statement, the authority has blamed usage of plastic dumping as a cause of the blockage.

Though the issue of illegal structure mushrooming in the city has gone severe in past few months and authorities have crackdown to curb them, those near drains and tunnels are creating major challenge as the encroachments have resulted in narrowing of the drain, causing flooding in the city. The illegal colonies where such structures have come up have not been provided with proper infrastructure.

Alwal is one of those areas which have been tremendously hit by the booming illegal structures, creating excessive pressure on the existing infrastructure.