Click to play videoHyderabad: As part of CNN-IBN-Outlook State of the Environment Poll, the CNN-IBN team quizzed people on where the sewage goes. Twenty-eight said municipal drain and only six per cent said rivers. [Special Coverage: World Environment Day]
The irony is that domestic sewage is one of big river pollutants today. Take the Musi river in Hyderabad which is currently where the city's sewage end up.
Most residents of the city – like Regina Rai - spend their mornings filling every pot and bottle at home. But that’s only on the days there’s water in her taps.
And on days when there's no water Regina has no choice but to call for a private tanker. Hyderabad, an IT hub, a real estate haven, a city of lakes is also a city with a water supply deficit.
When we meet Laxmi a cook from Madapur, her husband Nagraj is just heading out. He cycles for more than 10 km everyday to collect water. Laxmi cannot afford water tankers.
“There’s no water here. My husband takes a can every morning and goes to office, if there’s no water there, he goes to Kondapur go pick up water. Sometimes we only get half a can but we have to manage,” she says.
Ironically Hyderbad has two rivers - Musi and Majira, three massive man-made lakes - Osmansagar, Himayat Sagar and Hussein Sagar.
But today, Musi is just a place where domestic sewage is collected. And most water bodies are being covered with buildings and encroachments.
Which is perhaps why a city that requires 325 million gallons of water per day is spending more money and electricity to pump water from rivers outside the city
“You destroy water bodies in and around Hyderabad, bringing water from Manjira. Two phases of bringing water from Krishna cost Rs 26 a kilo, Rs 3 and Rs 4 from Himayat and Osman Sagar. Now we're thinking of pumping water from Godawari. 600 meter pumping water and 150 km, this is madness. If you can protect and preserve water bodies here, we don't need water from anywhere else,” says Captain Rama Rao of Forum For Better Hyderabad.
Authorities working in the Musi beautification project admit that these water bodies can no longer be a source for domestic water supply to the city
The Musi clean-up many feel is more an attempt to make space for more real-estate on the river bed. Little wonder then that more than 70 per cent of the Hyderbadis polled in the state of the environment survey are against the Musi beautification project.
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