SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Hyderabad: A civic body has written to Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy urging him to redirect the Rs 1,000 crore sanctioned for the upcoming Pushkaralu festival towards cleaning up the Godavari river, warning that decades of unchecked industrial pollution have left the state’s primary drinking water source severely degraded.
In a letter dated Thursday, June 18, Forum for Good Governance (FGG) president M Padmanabha Reddy said the Godavari, which supplies most of Hyderabad’s drinking water, had become one of the most polluted rivers in India over the past three decades.
The letter catalogued pollution sources along the river’s course through Telangana. Industrial effluents from Maharashtra enter at Kandakurthi near Basar in Nirmal district. By the time the river reaches Ramagundem-Mancherial, untreated municipal waste is discharged directly into it, compounded by coal mine runoff, thermal plant fly ash and a municipal landfill sitting close to the river bank.
At Bhadrachalam, the water has turned black and carries a pungent smell. Studies by the Central Water Commission, the Central Pollution Control Board, NEERI and IIT Hyderabad have all raised alarms about deteriorating water quality, the letter said.
The FGG also flagged that Maharashtra’s barrages on the upper Godavari have sharply reduced flows into Telangana. Near Basar, the river runs dry in April and May. During the last Pushkaralu, water had to be released from the Kadam Project because the river itself had none.
‘Redirect the funds’
Padmanabha Reddy argued that the Rs 1,000 crore earmarked for the Pushkaralu scheduled for July 2027 would be far better spent on river cleanup.
“Pushkaralu is a festival to be celebrated by citizens and the government’s role should be confined to law and order and medical help,” he wrote, urging the Chief Minister to initiate preventive measures to control pollution in a river that millions depend on for drinking water.
SOURCE : SIASAT
