SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Hyderabad: Environmental activists and subject matter experts held a Satyagraha-style protest at Dharna Chowk near Indira Park on Wednesday, April 29, demanding that people living on the banks of the Musi river be made the first beneficiaries of the Musi Riverfront Development Project if displaced by it.
The protesters, part of the People’s Committee for Musi River Rejuvenation (PCMRR), said they were not opposed to displacement per se, but insisted that the state government adopt a more scientific, hydrological and people-centric approach to the project.
Sagar Dhara, a former United Nations Environment Programme consultant and twice co-author of the Supreme Court committee’s reports on Hussain Sagar, said the lake had shrunk from 20 square kilometre originally to just 4.75 sq km today.
He warned that heavy metals, and insecticides such as Lindane and DDT, carried by contaminants from Patancheru, had entered the lake’s sediments and were flowing downstream into the Musi, making remediation increasingly difficult.
Dhara accused the Telangana Pollution Control Board (PCB) of enabling pollution rather than checking it, pointing out the contradiction in an agency that grants consent for industrial establishment also being tasked with controlling the resulting pollution.
He suggested that citizens pursue legal recognition of the Musi as a living entity with enforceable rights, and that gram sabhas be empowered to conduct independent environmental audits.
Environmental activist and advocate Dr Lubna Sarwath said the project, in its present form, posed a serious risk to Telangana’s climate, which she said had already reached a danger threshold. She flagged the absence of reports on pollution levels, microbiology and biodiversity, and noted that the detailed project report for the first phase had not been released publicly.
She also raised pointed questions about a private construction project. “We used the KML file from the government’s website and overlaid it on Google Earth and NRSA maps, and found that the high-rise venture of Aditya Constructions falls right inside the Musi River. Why is the company being let off, while the people living on the banks are being relocated?” she asked.
The PCMRR’s resolution demanded a proper enumeration of residents on the riverbanks, a socio-economic status report, public hearings, ward-committee consent, and a comprehensive analysis of contaminants, including pharmaceuticals, heavy metals and pesticides, in the river’s water and silt. It also called for a hydrological study that accounts for the Bhulkapur and Firangi nalas, which it said had been entirely left out of the project’s planning.
SOURCE : SIASAT
