From dumping garbage to sewerage effluents released from populated societies, Hyderabad has become a city with fewer lakes by the day.

Musi River, which is one of the main sources of water for the city, is divided into ‘nalas’, What was once a fresh water source for farmlands and people living across Annapurna Nagar, New Maruthi Nagar, Peerzadiguda and Parvathapur the river’s nalas have become victims to the boundless garbage generated by growing houses.

Narsimha (63), a local farmer near Koremulla, which falls on the outskirts of the city, explained how he observed the change in the quality of water coming from Musi River.

“Well, you can doubt the quality if the colour and smell seem fresh but, is it really difficult to tell that the water is contaminated after you can see garbage flowing along the water? We now mostly use the groundwater for irrigation and make sure our cattle stays away from that river,” he says.

“It is not just bad smell and mosquitoes anymore but most of our appliances like refrigerator, cooler, etc. that require water are showing problems. Most of our taps rust. These are signs we observe that show how much ground water in being affected due to contamination of the river,” he rues Lack of proper sewerage treatment plants stand as a major reason behind contamination of these water bodies.

Most of the treatment plans are outdated; they suited the population in 2000. With increasing summer, water evaporates leaving out all the effluents under the sun to rot and stink.

Officials from Lake Protection Committee, GHMC while denying the drying of the lakes said, “Hardly two or three out of 417 lakes observed within ORR are losing water. Rest of them still contain abundance of water. There are issues related to sewerage and garbage in 93 of them. Regular surveys are being made. We are first focusing on clearing out the surrounding garbage.”

There have been STPs installed around few of the lakes, such as Hussainsagar, which have not been successful. Effluents still find their way back to the lake. This happens when we do not understand what sort of effluents we are dealing with.

Major effluents in the city come from societies and industries. Both are vastly different and need to be treated separately. Lubna from “Save Our Urban Lakes” (SOUL) foundation explains how our government lacks basic information on the kind of effluents in nalas.

“Catchment area of a particular lake decides what material contaminates the lake body. We have constructed STPs blindly without any catchment area research. We don’t even know what kind of disease we are dealing with. How are we supposed to conclude on the cure?” she questions.

Most of the lakes around the city lack boundaries, sign boards or even dustbins. Lakes have become dump yards as no maintenance is provided to these places. Kapra Lake is one such example that has lost its charm over time.

People living in slums and huts around the lakes use water for washing clothes, taking a bath, bathing cattle, etc. Lakes are a single source of drinking water for domestic animals. Contaminating the water can affect the health of all the life that depends on it.

Dr Subba Rao, Lake Expert explains how hazardous the situation has become. “People, who take regular bath in the water, must be cautious. With the conditions right now, we can expect anything between rashes, irritation around sensitive areas such as eyes or even serious damage to body parts. Animals suffer from infections,” he warns.

“Today, we hardly even see any animal trying to drink water from the lakes as even they have realised something is wrong,” he adds.

He also explained why most of the lakes are turning green due to ‘Eutrophication’ and how it affects the water body. “All these green plants eat up oxygen in the water. This is nothing but sucking life out of water,” he informs.