Lake turned colony: Residents paid the heavy price for opting lake-side apartments

Hyderabad: The residential localities on the city’s outskirts paid the price for opting lake view apartment.

The City of Nizams once flaunted a seamlessly designed network of over 3,000 lakes has only a minuscule 169 lakes at present, reports TOI.

Many parts of Nizampet, Alwal, Kukatpally submerged because the apartments and housing projects in these areas had been illegally built on tank area and ‘NAALAS’ in complete violation of rules.

The Hindu report brings to light a 2003 map showing Yellama Kunta as one lake with a patch of dry land in the middle. On the other hand, a 2015 map shows blocks of row houses.

“Oh those villas were all flooded on Wednesday. The people there could not even come out of the first floor,” says Bala Swamy a resident of Jayanagar.

The flooding situation occurred due to ruthless destruction of major lakes and naalas to make way for real estate projects for building apartments by encroaching the water bodies.

To help the realty sector flourish, lakes have turned into colonies over the years.

The realty mafia, in collaboration with corrupt political forces, has spelt doom for Hyderabad.

The people’s dream living in lake-side apartments submerged in water.

“We have been pumping water out of our cellar from afternoon. We bought an apartment here as it was a lake view apartment. But we did not know that it was built by encroaching lake,” said A Mallikarjun, a resident.