Hyderabad: With the state government announcing a metro rail line via Jalpally to RGI Airport from Chandrayangutta, land grabbers are eyeing the Jalpally Lake and Umda Sagar Tank.
Encroachers have started filling the dried-up FTL area of Jalpally with big boulders. The boulders are reportedly being dumped on the tank bed by land mafia.
The Jalpally Lake’s FTL near Masjid-e-Bilal is slowly being filled in the nights to grab and take up construction on the prime spot situated next to the main road.
On the eastern side, some influential persons are dumping huge boulders and blocks of dismantled RCC slabs into the Jalpally Lake from the Wadi-e-Mustafa Colony side. These tactics have been long adopted by organised land mafia.
The Jalpally municipality had earlier revealed plans to convert the tank into a Mini Tank Bund with all recreational facilities. The water body is centuries old and is interlinked with Umda Sagar and Palle Cheruvu. A few other smaller water bodies in the basin were encroached upon over a period of time.
According to heritage activists, the Jalpally Lake was the source of drinking water for the city during the Qutb Shahi and Asaf Jahi rules. “The water was drawn through dedicated channels. The lake still is one of the remaining freshwater lakes in the city,” said a heritage activist.
On the other hand, Wakf properties run into hundreds of acres in Jalpally and Mamidpally close to the proposed route of the Hyderabad metro.
The Wakf has 718 acres of land of Ashoorkhana Ali Saad and Dargah Hazrat Saif Nawaz Jung at Mamidpally. Regular attempts are being made to encroach on the land and the board asked people to be careful before purchasing plots here. Further around 2131 acres of land is endowed with Dargah Sharfuddin.
Muslim community leaders advise that the TS Wakf Board immediately take steps to safeguard properties here.
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