High-rise around Hussainsagar will add to pollution
HYDERABAD: As chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao envisages scores of high-rise buildings around Hussainsagar lake and thus hopes to make Hyderabad a city of international standards, members of Forum For a Better Hyderabad have raised concerns regarding the 450-year-old lake and its further pollution.
'We are not against the development of high-rise buildings, but we consider Hussainsagar an inappropriate site for such a purpose. Prima facie, we are opposed to the intended project. The high-rises and the consequential increase in activities will further add to the increasing pollution of the lake. The core values of the lake will further be undermined,' said a release from FBH.
The contemplated project will directly counter the recommendations of the Supreme Court appointed Committee, particularly, those under 6.1 to 6.3. No objections were filed by the state government to any of the SC appointed committee reports before the Supreme Court in its final hearing in January 2014, they pointed out.
According to them, restoration of the lake should be done by removing encroachments, as suggested in section 4.2. with regard to encroachments prior to 2000, other than road and railway line, cases in court of law should be pursued, and wherever the land reverts to the lake, the water body should be enlarged to that extent.
Regularisation in favour of the poor, who may have squatted in colonies, may not be wise. Instead they should be relocated outside the lake area in such a manner that it does not affect their livelihood and social interactions.
The FSI of the colonies that are encroachments into the lake should be frozen at 1:1, and the buildings above 2 storeys (G+1) should not be allowed under any circumstances, they said.
'By keeping the lake and its immediate surroundings relatively free from air pollution by not commercialising the immediate areas around it, the city would get some relief from the high asthma and other air pollution-related health effects that most other big Indian cities have been suffering from,' they added.
News Posted: 14 November, 2014
|
