Hyderabad: Mohammed Siddiqui (68) ran out of his cramped house as water gushed into his house made of asbestos sheets at Osman Nagar, when heavy rains caused severe floods in the area last week. Since then, the senior citizen has been living a harrowed life, to say the least. Like him, everyone in the locality has been left to fend for themselves thanks to government apathy.
“Our area comes under the Jalpally Municipality but no officials visited us to clean or drain out the water. When it started flooding, even the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams didn’t come and all of us helped each other to save ourselves. Even state Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy didn’t visit us and instead only came up to Balapur,” said Siddiqui, another resident of the area.
Osman Nagar is an area that lies about 6 kilometre away from the Hyderabad international airport and about 5 kms from Chandrayangutta. There are about 250 families living in the area, which is situated along the Venkateshwara lake. Osman Nagar is also one of the most flood-affected places in Hyderabad, which was devastated due to torrential rians that lashed the city last week in different spells.
The flood waters practically destroyed everything in homes of people living in areas like such as Hafeez Baba Nagar, Al Jubail Colony, Nadeem Colony, Saroor Nagar, etc. While water has mostly receded from those areas, houses in Osman Nagar are still inundated. In fact, the situation has been grave there since September itself, said residents.
“After the recent rains, the situaton turned horrible,” lamented Junaid (28), a resident. When this reporter visited Osman Nagar, it was observed that houses were still inundated with water as high as eight feet in some places. The situation was so pathetic that the stagnant water had resultd in a layer of algae forming in places. It has alsoc become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. About 600 homes are believed to have been submerged in the area.
Many residents of Osman Nagar have already vacated their houses; some have moved out to live with relatives, while others are living on the streets nearby. The only respite the latter group is when volunteers from local NGOs visit the area to provide food or essential times. The displaced persons included a large number of women, who are living with their children on the roads, with no food and proper drinking water.
On Friday, heart-wrenching scenes played out at Osman Nagar, wherein a pregnant woman, Nasreen Begum, had to vacate her house with her three children. “My husband is physically handicaped and our house is filled with water. With no other option, my family has been residing on the roads at Shaheen Naga. We don’t have any family here in the city. No minister visited the area or provided any aid to us,” Nasreen told Saisat.com
Viqar Pasha (44), another resident, was also one among the many who had to leave his house to save his life. “I have left my own house and had to stand in queues to receive food from NGOs, who come twince in a week here. At least we had a house to live during the lockdown, but due to flooding we are homeless now,” he added.