Who will clean up city lake?

HYDERABAD: ‘Use and throw’ appears to be the principle adopted by various government departments with respect to Hussainsagar. The lake and its surroundings have become a major moneyspinner for many departments, but when it comes to its upkeep, no one bothers.
Tank Bund, Necklace Road, NTR Marg, Sanjeevaiah Park, Lumbini Park, NTR Gardens, etc., all located around the 349 hectares of Hussainsagar water, have been developed and are attracting people from all over the city.Consequently, Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) and Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) and AP Tourism Development Corporation earn crores of rupees as revenue from these places.
While HUDA claims the ownership of Necklace Road, Sanjeevaiah Park, NTR Garden and Lumbini Park and earns crores as revenue, it refuses to take up the responsibility of maintaining the lake.
Similarly, MCH does the maintenance of NTR Marg and Tank Bund but washes its hands of any responsibility. The MCH officials put the blame on those departments earning major revenues from the lake environs saying it is their job to look after its maintenance as well.
The MCH, however, takes up the work of removal of water hyacinth and accumulated garbage on the shore whenever the stink from the lake reaches the Secretariat, which houses the chief minister’s office, the civic body officials said.
The APTDC too mints money by running boating services in the lake. While they complain that the water hyacinth disrupts the smooth running of their boats, they are not ready to clean it up.
Though Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has set up a sewerage treatment plant near the lake and releases treated water into the lake, there is still drainage water flowing into the lake which needs to be stopped immediately, a government official said.
The government is also planning to run power boats in the lake and if the water continues to remain polluted with no one taking complete charge of cleaning the water, the project may not come though, the official said. Recently, when mayor Teegala Krishna Reddy held a meeting ahead of the Afro-Asian Games to address the issue of foul smell from Hussainsagar, he failed to convince any department to take up the responsibility of day-to-day maintenance of the lake.
"The lake is being misused and it is the right time that the attitude shifts from beautification around the lake to cleaning and dredging the lake," the official added.
The depth of the lake has also decreased due to the immersion of Ganesha idols year after year and it is slowly reducing the lake’s waterholding capacity, the official added.