Blame game between HYDRAA, residents as inundation continues

Inundation of homes and establishments close to the stormwater drain at Rasoolpura during Friday’s torrential downpour has given way to a blame game between residents of the area and the Hyderabad Disaster Response & Asset Protection Agency (HYDRAA).

Members of an illustrious family after whose name the Patny Colony was named, got into a bitter argument with HYDRAA chief A.V. Ranganath accusing the agency’s action more than a month ago as the reason for the flooding of the colony and surrounding areas.

“All homes in Patny Colony were flooded. Three vehicle service centres at Viman Nagar were under four feet water. Water entered the engines of a few cars and motor cycles which were given for servicing. The losses for individuals and businesses were huge,” said Ch. Ramachandra, a resident.

Rescued using boats

Representative of a car service centre which suffered the damage, said they were still taking stock of the situation, as the centre got flooded again on Saturday due to heavy rain. Mr. Ranganath toured the area in a boat monitoring the rescue operations on Friday. More than 100 persons, most of them employees stranded in offices nearby, were rescued using boats.

On June 6 this year, HYDRAA forces demolished what the agency termed encroachments on the drain, and a statement from the HYDRAA said the drain widening and retaining wall works would be taken up immediately, and completed within 15 days. Six structures on a 150-metre stretch were pulled down during the operation, most of them compound walls.

“The drain has retaining wall only towards the side which comes under Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. On the stretch that falls under Cantonment Board, there was no retaining wall, but only the compound walls built by private individuals for protection of their properties,” a resident informed under the condition of anonymity. The private home owners even built their own smaller drains which emptied into the main nala through the walls.

With the walls pulled down, copious flood water found its way through the colonies, inundating whatever came in the way. Now, HYDRAA has used sandbags to block the floodwater from entering the colony.

The refrain heard from the residents is that the HYDRAA should not have taken up the operation during monsoons, and not before demarcation of the boundaries of the drain as per the revenue maps.

Mr. Ranganath, however, justifies the action, saying the operation was taken up to prevent a larger disaster in other colonies in Cantonment experiencing floods every year, residents of which reportedly approached the agency with complaints.

“Construction of the retaining wall would have been completed by now had we not been hindered by a few residents who had approached the court against the operation,” he said. He said fifteen days ago, HYDRAA forces were stopped from construction of the retaining wall, by the same residents who entered into an argument with himon Friday.

The drain at the centre of controversy carries surplus water from Boin Cheruvu of Hasmathpet and is joined by another smaller drain from Jubilee Bus Station which in turn had been built at the location where Picket Lake had once existed. Then it proceeds from under the Minister Road to join Hussainsagar.

Near the culvert under the Sardar Patel Road of Begumpet, the drain is up to 60 feet wide, and further down near the Minister Road, the width increases to more than 70 feet. At the location where the structures were demolished, the drain is contained to less than 20 feet, due to absence of retaining wall and rampant encroachments.