Hyderabad: Months after heavy rains followed by floods resulted in severe damage to low-lying areas in the city, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) on Monday planned to implement a zone-wise immediate action plan to prevent flooding in the next monsoon season.
Principal Secretary of Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) department Arvind Kumar on Monday conducted a high-level meeting with all the departments, to discuss the measures to be taken to prevent flooding in the next monsoon.
Speaking at the review meeting, Arvind Kumar said, “The MA&UD department has directed the GHMC to formulate and implement a ‘Zone-wise Immediate Action Plan’ to take an instant action to prevent flooding in the residential areas, lakes, ponds and ditches under the Outer Ring Road (ORR) in the coming monsoon season.”
During the meeting Arvind Kumar asked the officials to take up nala-widening and removal of encroachments to ensure the free flow of water to avoid inundation and directed the authorities to follow the Strategic Nala Development Programme (SNDP).
The GHMC officials at the meeting compared the October 17, 2020 floods with the ‘Great Musi Flood of 1908’.
With heavy inundation occurred in apartment cellars people experienced many problems in recent floods, Arvind Kumar instructed the officials to ensure in providing pumps to drain out rainwater from cellars. He also asked the electricity department officials to shift electric panel boards to the ground floor from the cellar the electric supply should not get disturbed when it rains.
It has also been decided that for the safety of people living close to lakes, ponds, ditches and encroachments on the banks of lakes would be removed immediately by the authorities.
Commissioner of GHMC, Lokesh Kumar said, “There are 185 lakes under the GHMC limits and it is mandatory to provide sluice, outflow in order to manage the outflow of water, to avoid inundation.” Lokesh Kumar also asked the officials to take up the works immediately on a priority basis.
Director of Disaster Management Satyanarayana said due to recent heavy rains the around 26 municipalities near ORR, 135 areas got inundated after which 573 encroachments were identified near nalas and 4606 encroachments in 247 Full Tank Level (FTL), soon these encroachments will be taken down, he added.
Earlier, the Zonal Commissioners gave a PowerPoint presentation to the higher authorities on the recent inundation places and action plan to contain inundation for the coming monsoon.
The meeting was attended by Chief Engineer, GHMC Zonal Commissioners, Engineers from HMWS&SB, Irrigation, officials from Nala Development and Cantonment.
