Hyderabad lake goes Bengaluru way, spills toxic foam

HYDERABAD: After

Bengaluru's Bellandur and Varthur lakes

gained notoriety for spewing

toxic foam

, Hyderabad's Ramakrishnapuram Lake (RK Puram lake) near Neredmet too seems to be choking with pollution.

On Monday afternoon, the lake's weir furiously frothed over with clouds of noxious foam as alarmed residents looked on in horror.

What left residents fuming is that the lake is a part of Alwal catchment area and feeds the aquifer from where water makes its way into homes of hundreds of residents of 14 different colonies.

Blaming this noxious foam on the alarming rise in pollutants pouring into the lake, residents expressed concern. “All colonies in the area use borewells for their daily water needs and the groundwater is recharged by the lake. If it is indeed carrying polluted water, the same poison must be entering into the water that we use everyday,“ said GK Nagesh Bandu, a resident of Devinagar, which abuts the lake.

JR Devender, a resident of RK Puram, said: “We are scared of touching the foam as it might give us an infection.Another concern is the putrid smell emanating from the foam.“ It is not just the water.Residents have also come to fear the fruits and vegetables they buy from a market located next to the lake. “There is a Rythu Bazaar right next to this lake. How do we know the vegetables we buy from there are also not contaminated?“ asked

TS Seetharam

, resident of New Vidya Nagar.

Pollution, experts suggest, has been taking place for the last decade and with authorities doing precious little about it, they fear that the lake could eventually meet the same fate as Bengaluru's Bellandur lake. in February this year, the Bellandur lake was covered with foam and burst into flames.

Repeated attempts to reach officials of the Pollution Control Board and Telangana State Groundwater Directorate (TSGWD) failed to elicit any response.

Experts like BV Subba Rao, who was assisting the Karnataka government in cleaning up Bellandur lake, said that every once in a month, the lake bursts into flames because of pollution.

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