Cadastral map of the lake mentioned in MLAs’ petition vanishes from the HMDA website

Four Congress party legislators approached the High Court on Monday (June 16) with a public interest litigation, alleging encroachment and fraudulent deals on a land parcel in Khajaguda village which they contend as belonging to government, and where a reputed builder is raising an expensive condominium complex.

In the petition, the legislators — Janampalli Anirudh Reddy, Yennam Srinivas Reddy, Murali Naik Bhukya and Kuchkulla Rajesh Reddy — alleged that the venture encroached upon a lake in Khajaguda, apart from the government land. The satellite images from April this year show that a large portion of the lake’s FTL area has been cleared and levelled and a path has been made through the lake for the heavy vehicles to ply to the construction site. A compound wall and temporary structures can be seen encroaching into the buffer area, as demarcated in the Irrigation department maps.

The lake in question is mentioned as Nanakram Kunta in Nanakramguda village of the Rangareddy district in the records of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority, with the lake id, 3712. Final notification for the lake was issued in May, 2016, two years after the preliminary notification.

Since all the lakes within the Outer Ring Road have been brought under the lake protection committee constituted with the chief of the Hyderabad Disaster Response & Asset Protection Agency A.V.Ranganath, Mr. Anirudh Reddy also brought the issue to Mr. Ranganath’s notice through a letter in March this year.

In the petition to the High Court, the petitioners alleged manipulation of the survey numbers by the Revenue department leading to the fraudulent transactions.

Arousing suspicions on that front, the cadastral map of the lake has vanished from the HMDA’s website, where the survey numbers and their locations within the lake’s boundaries and outside are to be found. Instead, a document with merely the survey numbers in FTL & buffer areas is uploaded, where the government land within the lake’s FTL is mentioned as 6 acres and 17 guntas, and within buffer, as 34 guntas.

The FTL (full tank level) map of the lake mentions the area of the water body as 6.52 acres. The water spread area, through remaining below 50% during the past 15 years, could have been much higher as can be seen from the historical satellite images from Google Earth. An image from October 2022 shows water spread even in the area outside the FTL map, which is corroborated by the contours shown by an elevation path.

The sprawling campus of Maulana Azad National Urdu University serves as the catchment for Nanakram Kunta as do the open lands in the surrounding areas which sustain several lakes such as Bhageerathamma Cheruvu, Khajaguda Pedda Cheruvu and Yellamma Cheruvu in the vicinity.

The project has been registered with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority, with a building permission by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. An online realty portal mentions the price of the luxury apartments ranging between ₹6.5 crore and ₹19 crore.

Interestingly enough, a pictorial representation of the venture on the builder’s website shows several surrounding lakes, including Bhageerathamma Cheruvu, Khajaguda Pedda Cheruvu, Yellamma Cheruvu, and other minor water bodies too, but not the lake on the banks of which it is coming up.