Musi rejuvenation clears all approvals, tenders soon for first 21 km: Revanth Reddy

Hyderabad’s Musi rejuvenation project now holds every clearance it needs, and tenders for phase one will be called soon, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy said on Wednesday, 11 November. He was speaking in Madhapur, in the city’s IT district, after opening Thammidikunta, a lake revived by HYDRAA, the city’s lake and disaster-response agency.

The river runs 55 km through the city, and the opening phase takes in 21 km of it. The Chief Minister called the work a clean-up of the river rather than a cosmetic makeover, and said the government would look after every family the project displaced or hurt.

Thammidikunta itself has more than doubled, from 14 acres to 30, he said. Part of the extra ground came from the actor Akkineni Nagarjuna: two acres of his land. Nagarjuna, the guest of honour, was presented with a shawl when he arrived.

Half of Hyderabad’s lakes lost

The city once counted 1,372 lakes, and roughly half are gone, lost to encroachment, migrants settling on the banks and years of official neglect, the Chief Minister said. About 20 are being brought back. Besides Thammidikunta, the list he gave includes Bathukamma Kunta, Bum-Rukn-ud-Dowla, Sunnam Cheruvu, Nalla Cheruvu, Fox Sagar and the Miyapur lake.

Flooded roads, he said, are the price of building on lake beds. He went back to the flood of 1908, which killed thousands. The Nizam’s government then brought in the engineer M. Visvesvaraya, and Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar were completed by 1920. Both still supply Hyderabad’s drinking water. Downstream, he said, pollution in the Musi has poisoned life in Nalgonda district, which already struggles with fluoride.

Housing for families on the riverbank

Earlier meetings set out the plan for riverside families. At a presentation on the first phase on 13 March, the Chief Minister said about 10,000 low-income households lived on the project’s path and that double-bedroom houses had been kept ready for them, with homes to be built close by so that daily earners would not lose their work. At a review in June he ordered houses for riverbed families and transferable development rights or cash compensation for landowners. In August he asked officials to speed up land acquisition and frame a clear land-pooling policy.

The Chief Minister asked the Cyberabad municipal authorities and the Indira Mahila Shakti women’s groups to look after Thammidikunta, with the women running small stalls at the lake. He wants it to host Dasara, Deepavali and Sankranti gatherings, with a Jammi tree planted on its bank. He did not give a date for the Musi tender call.