Hyderabad: Despite the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s efforts to widen the nala in the Makkah Colony area in Basarathnagar, the entire locality flooded within twenty minutes of rain on Sunday, which caused the residents of the colony sufficient trouble.
As the weather report by Indian Meteorological Department had predicted, significant pockets of the city experienced heavy rains and were unable to cope with the same.
S.Q. Masood, a social activist and a resident of Makkah Colony notes, “The GHMC carried out two initiatives to widen the nalas in the area and instill a box drain to counter rains. They spent around 1.5 crores on the same. There is however a clear engineering problem as the problem remains unresolved.”
Masood informed Siasat that the mosque in the area has been flooded repeatedly which destroys the infrastructure and causes great anguish to the residents of the area. “The drain remains closed and hence prevents water seepage. There is no other way for the rain to drain from the streets.” he added.
“I have been staying in Makkah Colony for 19 years and this has always been a problem. Despite complaints, the problem isn’t going away. We don’t want to spend money on solving it each time and so post the rains, we all clean up our houses which gets filled with waste and rainwater.” Said Hussain Khan, a resident of the area.
Makkah Colony’s problem has persisted for the last ten to fifteen years. The same is true of many other pockets of the city like areas of Masoonagar and the Al-Jubail colony, Charminar.
GHMC’s efforts haven’t resulted in sufficient solutions as residents find themselves in a hapless situation. Aside from officials inspecting the area post the damage, there isn’t much done to produce a long term solution to the problem.
With the IMD predicting spells of rain and thundershowers for the coming week, residents in various parts of the city deal with the anxiety of survival.