3 months ago
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As Hyderabad eases into evening, Durgam Cheruvu begins to execute — framed by height, washed successful light, carried by euphony — offering a cautiously composed spectacle to those watching from above. From a fourth-floor rooftop restaurant, the aboveground of the water glitters similar a drawstring of diamonds, the suspension span implicit it glows successful tricolour hues and trance euphony drifts done the unfastened air. Diners settee in, drinks successful hand, mesmerised by the view.
“Within 10 minutes, the odor fades from the caput and the show becomes enthralling. Then we get mislaid successful conversation,” says a second-time visitant to the restaurant-cum-bar.
On the different side, astatine the boating point, visitors queue up for a speedboat thrust — ₹500 for 25 minutes — zipping done waters studded with floating patches of gurrapudekka (water hyacinth). The aviator steers the vessel with practiced ease, but the stench of rotting integrated substance is overpowering.
“We resumed boating lone a week ago. We had to halt boating operations arsenic visitors were complaining astir the foul odor and the h2o had go unnavigable. It took america 20 days to wide the gurrapudekka,” says an authoritative of Telangana Tourism.
Between the curated spectacle of leisure, built astir upscale restaurants and a cautiously staged stunning presumption of the lake, and the nausea-inducing world of decay lies the paradox of Durgam Cheruvu. One of the larger h2o bodies to person survived decades of unit from builders and authoritative interventions, it is inactive being softly altered: its h2o level has been lowered and its edges reshaped to escaped up land.
The mechanics of that harm go disposable astatine the confederate borderline of the lake. Descending a formation of steps towards the sluice gate, an Irrigation Department authoritative recalls a infinitesimal from past monsoon which, helium suggests, changed the lake’s behaviour.
“Last monsoon, the water bund was dug up to laic a caller tube to merchandise water. It was dug up aft the h2o level increased. Earlier, it utilized to emergence up to this level,” helium says, pointing to a people astir 2 metres supra the contiguous waterline. The fig aligns intimately with readings from a cellphone altimeter and elevation maps of the area. On the Deccan Plateau, a two-metre driblet successful h2o level does not simply little a shoreline; it exposes acres of onshore astir a lake. Land that has already been encroached upon with the operation of a raised bund to make a fait accompli.
For a water of Durgam Cheruvu’s standard and history, the implications are profound. Once a root of drinking h2o and the reservoir that filled the moat surrounding Golconda Fort, its afloat vessel level has been repeatedly altered to escaped up land. Historical records, anecdotal accounts and aged photographs hint a dependable manipulation of the lake’s level implicit the decades, cumulatively lowering it by astir 2 metres. The aged sluice gross connected the confederate broadside bears carnal grounds to this shift. The lake’s archetypal afloat vessel level of 560.1 metres supra oversea level matched that of the h2o vessel successful the precocious reaches of Golconda Fort, allowing h2o to travel by gravity. After the 2015 involution by the h2o board, the sluice gross present sits astatine 558 metres.
“Some precise almighty radical built houses astir the lake. When the water waters entered their homes during monsoon, they forced the officials to merchandise water. Then determination is the contented of disappearance of earthy inflow channels for rainfall and stormwater. Now lone sewage enters it regularly,” says Hyderabad chronicler and technologist Sajjad Shahid. His relationship is corroborated by the Irrigation Department official.
“I adjacent and unfastened the valve whenever I person instructions to bash so. Earlier, the h2o was allowed to scope up to this spot earlier I opened the valve. The excess h2o utilized to travel retired of the transmission beside the masjid and travel towards Malkam Cheruvu. Now, each the h2o is released done this sluice gross and determination are 2 different pipelines wherever the h2o drains automatically,” says the official, who has worked successful the Irrigation section for the past 40 years.
Construction frenzy
Shahid recalls a precise antithetic water from the 1 that exists today. In the aboriginal 1980s, helium says, the h2o was pristine bluish and the surrounding country mostly empty. “It would beryllium hard to judge that the country was conscionable plots of land. The fewer radical who built houses determination reported predominant burglaries. Then the Jubilee Hills Housing Society issued a menace to unfastened crippled owners to physique houses, failing which the onshore would beryllium taken back. That triggered frenzied operation activity,” helium says.
Most lodging colonies multiplied betwixt 1995 and 2020, driven by the IT roar radiating retired of Hitec City, Cyber Towers and the enactment of the Cyberabad Development Authority (CDA) connected January 20, 2001. The enlargement spilled acold beyond the zoned areas of the CDA, morphing into a regulatory free-for-all marked by amerciable settlements. The lake’s h2o level, Shahid argues, is present kept deliberately debased to guarantee that affluent residents who unrecorded on its borderline are not enactment to inconvenience.
Recently, the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency (HYDRAA) announced that it had evicted squatters who had converted a information of the water into a parking lot. But adjacent earlier the signage enactment up by the enforcement bureau could dry, the fencing erected astatine the tract was moved speech utilizing earthmovers — to let the removal of h2o hyacinth with a de-weeder and bucket excavator. “We complaint ₹2.5 lakh per period and ₹10,000 a time for removing the weed. The weed volition again afloat screen the water successful a substance of 20 days if we don’t cleanable it regularly,” says the contractor executing the clean-up operation.
The contamination feeding the lake’s diminution has a measurable source. The 7 MLD (million litres per day) sewage attraction works connected the bluish broadside of Durgam Cheruvu releases astir 10 lakh cubic metres of treated h2o into the water each 10 days (data for the older 5 MLD works is not available).
Visualised differently, the discharge is equivalent to a 100-metre-square operation of h2o carrying a coliform number of 430 MPN (most probable number) per 100 ml. The numbers archer a paradoxical story: the h2o meets definite clean-water benchmarks with a Chemical Oxygen Demand of 40 mg/L, portion its Biological Oxygen Demand stands astatine 3 mg/L, levels that render it unfit for adjacent wildlife and marine life. It is this organically loaded water, released continuously into the lake, that fuels the runaway maturation of h2o hyacinth.
The engineering solution to apprehension this travel has been known for implicit a decade. Thirteen years ago, the archetypal connection and support were granted for constructing interception and diversion structures astatine the Madhapur and Silent Valley nalas, on with the enactment of a ringing bund and the laying of a ringing main astatine Durgam Cheruvu. The archetypal signifier for diversion of sewage entering the water was estimated to outgo ₹35 crore. Since then, funds person been sanctioned nether antithetic schemes, but the result has been the other of what was intended: the water has shrunk from 160.6 acres, and its h2o prime continues to deteriorate.
In February 2015, a transmission was created astatine Durgam Cheruvu to alteration outflow, marking 1 of the earliest large interventions to little the lake’s h2o level. | Photo Credit: Serish Nanisetti
One thing, however, has changed successful the past year: the fear. In the colonies that fringe the lake, the anxiousness that erstwhile accompanied authoritative markings has mostly vanished. “Most of the residents person erased the markers made by officials. Only a faint marker remains,” says Srinivasulu, who has worked arsenic a watchman astatine a villa overlooking the water for 11 years.
The opposition with the past is stark. “In the gardens attached to the palaces, canals zigzagged astatine intervals, and fountains and pools teemed the precincts. The palaces were erected connected a plateau and were laid retired successful a harmonious manner with streams and waterfalls huddling the main structure. Fountains were devised astatine beautious spots each around,” wrote William Methwold aft visiting Hyderabad successful 1622.
Nearly 400 years later, residents astir Durgam Cheruvu beryllium down mosquito netting, airy joss sticks to support insects astatine bay and unopen windows erstwhile the upwind turns. Inside the Last House Coffee Shop, mosquitoes the size of tiny coins buzz and wound diners.
Power games
In August 2024, the tehsildar of Serilingampally Municipality issued notices to 240 location and spot owners astir Durgam Cheruvu, invoking Section 23 of the Water, Land and Trees (WALTA) Act. Overnight, houses successful Amar Society were marked with a reddish ‘F, signifying afloat vessel level (FTL) of the water and sending a question of panic done affluent residents who said they were unaware that they were violating the law.
Besides those from Amar Society, residents of Nectar Garden and Doctors Colony, on with a fewer location owners successful Kavuri Hills, were directed to region amerciable structures wrong the FTL and buffer portion of the h2o body.
The buzz astir demolitions gained momentum arsenic the notices coincided with HYDRAA’s demolition of a information of N-Convention, owned by histrion Akkineni Nagarjuna.
Among those served notices was Tirupathi Reddy, member of Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, whose sprawling bureau and residence marked by elephantine posters of the person basal retired arsenic landmarks. For a little moment, it appeared that the days of tony cafés and homes with manicured, walled gardens on the water were numbered.
That infinitesimal passed. The High Court directed Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation officials to see the 2022 recommendations of a five-member committee, which held that Durgam Cheruvu was nary longer an irrigation vessel but a tourer spot, and to settee FTL encroachment issues pragmatically, blotting retired yet different sliver of anticipation for the lake’s recovery.
Activist Lubna Sarwath of Save Our Urban Lakes says the harm is present disposable adjacent to a casual visitor. “I visited the water astir a period agone and recovered that the outflow had increased, with much froth than before. Rocks had been demolished to marque mode for a pipeline,” she says. What is being erased, she adds, is simply a scenery erstwhile identified by a method study arsenic a triangular rocky enclave linking Durgam Cheruvu, the downstream Malkam Cheruvu and Khajaguda Pedda Cheruvu — a earthy strategy that allowed h2o to move, settee and prolong life.
The unravelling of Durgam Cheruvu arsenic an ecosystem is not accidental but incremental, an ongoing task shaped by the cumulative actions of each civic bodies successful Hyderabad. During the 2025 monsoon, the Irrigation section dug up a transmission to merchandise much water. At the aforesaid time, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board has been discharging ample volumes of sewage downstream arsenic it tries to reconnect a 1,200-mm-diameter pipeline meant to divert sewage from the upstream areas surrounding Durgam Cheruvu.
Each involution is projected arsenic a method necessity. Taken together, they person steadily accelerated the degradation of a historical water into a tightly controlled h2o body, its destiny dictated little by earthy inflows and contours and much by pipelines, valves and expedient existent property compulsions.
