Riverbed encroachment: Hyderabad bans new buildings

Committee wants report in a week on who approved paperwork.

HYDERABAD:

In a bid to end encroachments on the riverbed, Hyderabad has banned its building control authority from permitting the construction of apartments and commercial buildings.

The decision was prompted by construction on the riverbed or kachcha areas, which constrict the flow of water that ultimately exacerbates flooding. The District Relief Committee now wants a report of all the recently approved no-objection certificates and project maps. The committee met on Saturday with minister Zahid Bhurgari in chair.

Bhurgari directed the authority to submit a detailed report within a week implicating officers who approved the NoCs and maps of the projects that were built on the dry riverbed. “The authority should also explain what drainage plan it has for the 40,000 apartments that are under construction in the city,” he asked.

The building control authority had give the go-ahead for several projects in Latifabad and Qasimabad which fall inside the loop embankment of the River Indus which is why they were inundated during the flooding last year. The authority doesn’t even monitor construction in densely populated areas of the city that fail to meet environmental protection standards.

MNA Tayyab Hussain questioned how the authority could permit the construction of seven-storey buildings despite a clear ban. “We are putting the lives of our people at risk,” he observed.

The meeting was attended by MNAs Syed Amir Ali Shah Jamote and Tayyab Hussain, MPAs Suhail Yousuf, Waseem Hussain and Akram Adil. Also in attendance were the EDOs of all district government departments, town municipal administrators, and the officers from the irrigation department, SITE, the cantonment board, Sida and Wasa.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2011.