June 17, 2013
HYDERABAD: Home to Asia's first office of Facebook and Google's first in India, these companies have put Hyderabad right on top of the global map by providing zillions of solutions worldwide from the city, but when it comes to their own toilet waste, they apparently have no clue where it is heading.
June 17, 2013
HYDERABAD: Home to Asia's first office of Facebook and Google's first in India, these companies have put Hyderabad right on top of the global map by providing zillions of solutions worldwide from the city, but when it comes to their own toilet waste, they apparently have no clue where it is heading.
With very few sewerage treatment plants (STP) working properly, waste flowing from the toilets of hundreds of top IT companies in the southern city's "hi-tech" zone has polluted adjoining water bodies to such an extent that its on verge of an epidemic, environmentalists warned.
Apart from housing offices of Microsoft, Oracle and IBM, global search engine Google, which revolutionized its email services with the introduction of a "blue gmail" with six years of research, runs its worldwide engineering, online sales operations and human resource operations out of Hyderabad and more are coming.
But environmentalists are worried about how Cyber City is now responsible for largescale ecological damage as untreated waste from commercial and residential structures, straightaway find their way into nearby lakes and open drains, killing aquatic life and is threatening humans. Even the residential areas of Hyderabad's cyber city called Cyberabad has no sanitation system to deal with human waste.
"The lakes in the area are burdened with sewage," said Thakur Rajkumar Singh, local activist and a resident of the area.
"It seems the sewage water has seeped into the water table which can have devastating effects on human lives. Though some companies claim that they have STP's, most of the time the untreated water is dumped into the nearby water bodies, he said.
Activists say most of the companies outsource the maintenance of the premises to the third parties. "This is not their core area of work and hence do not bother much about how these sewerage treatment plants are working or whether it is affecting the environment," Syed Shah Ali Hussaini, an environmentalist said.
"The multinationals are really not bothered about what is happening outside their campuses," Hussaini, who himself is an employee of a top company added.
Hyderabad, once home to over 3000 lakes has been reduced to about 100-odd lakes, with most of them encroached upon or polluted with effluents dumped by chemical and pharma companies.
"There is every possibility of an epidemic like situation here due to accumulation of untreated waste," said USN Murty, head, Biology division of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.
He said the administration does not bother to check and do something about sewage-filled Durgam Cheruvu, Medikunta Lake, Nanakramguda Lake and Patel Lake among others.
Hyderabad's bustling Cyber City, spread over 30,000 acres houses India's biggest international convention centre and "Mindspace", built on a new philosophy of working and living like home and a Green Business Centre", to promote eco-friendly activities, but have not been able to provide solution to the sewerage problem.
Environmentalists said the precarious scenario not only reflects on the "careless attitude" of the government, but also questions the so-called corporate social responsibility of corporate bigwigs.
In 2007, the government asked the HMWSSB (Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board to implement a sewerage master plan for Hi-tec City and adjoining areas.
The work, to be completed over two years at a cost of Rs 200 crore involved setting up six sewerage treatment plants (STP) with a 91 km drainage line covering area in Cyber City along with its fringes.
But even after six years, not a single STP has been built till now, and even the laying of pipelines is moving at a snail's pace.
"The project got delayed due to financial issues and relevant permissions. The construction of a few STPs is almost complete and will function soon. The laying of pipelines will also be completed by December this year," said T Naveen Reddy, DGM, projects, HMWSSB.
The rules say any structure with a built-up area of 20,000 sq m should install a STP and this should be checked and monitored by the pollution control board on a regular basis, but this is rarely followed.
"We do not have manpower to check regularly but once in a while we do inspect, if they are functioning properly," said a PCB official.
The industry association however said they were committed towards the environment and welfare of Cyber City.
"From the industry's perspective we want the entire area to be hygienic. Hence, STP's have been installed in all the major IT parks in the area, with some companies leasing it out and others owning it," said Bipin Chandra Pendyala, Secretary, IT and ITeS Industry Association of Andhra Pradesh (ITsAP)
"Some start-ups and small ones might not have installed it though," he admitted.
"But we would like the entire area to have a proper civic system since a large number of residents in the area also belong to the IT industry."
Courtesy: TOI
