Not Waste Management, But “Management” of Waste
Written by Pranav Vasisht Vemuri (Masters Student at Azim Premji University)
Environmental conservation and policy lessons through understanding the “management” of a ‘heritage’ site.
Hussain sagar, fondly referred to as ‘Tank bund’ by the locals is probably the most famous heritage site in Hyderabad. Any tourist that visits this city, or if Hyderabad is mentioned in any video, it is the snapshot of this lake with the iconic Buddha statue in the middle of it that usually gets chosen to represent the whole city (with its close competitor, the Charminar!). Also, generations of the local Hyderabadis would have fond memories of beautiful evenings spent with family and friends by the lake and in the lawns of the necklace road (a parallel road to the tank bund). The other side of all of this is that, the source of this iconic lake is the river Musi, which, in a way, is the complete opposite to what one sees at the Tank Bund. The river has become a dumping body for both the people and the government, where if one bothers to go beyond the Tank Bund and look at the condition of the river in other parts of the city, the sight and the experience is completely opposite, with loads of garbage floating and constantly spewing toxic gases filled with a perpetual and unbearable stench in the vicinity. One wouldn’t be able to believe that it is the water of the same river that is embodied by the iconic Hussain Sagar lake. Let us look at why does this contradiction exists and what are the intentions and approaches that make this contradiction persist.
Reign, Rains and Reservoirs
Hussain Sagar (also known as ‘Tank Bund’) was constructed in the reign of the Nizam- Ibrahim Quli Qutub Shah, in the year 1563 by the kingdom’s Master of Architecture, Hussain Shah Wali, after whom the lake is named. The source of the Hussain Sagar was one of the tributaries of the river Musi, which originates in the Anantagiri Hills of Vikarabad, which is about 100 kilometers from Hyderabad. For more than three centuries river Musi was one of the main sources of water supply and irrigation in the city. In 1908, during the rule of Nizam Mir Mahbub Ali Pasha, floods of hitherto unprecedented magnitude in the month of September caused the river to overflow and it flooded the entire city. It took the lives of at least 15,000 people, made 80,000 homeless and almost accounted for a loss of three crore rupees, often recalled as the worst disaster in the history of the city till date. India’s engineering gem, M.Visvesvaraya, along with the newly constituted ‘City Improvement Board (CIB)’ decided to build two reservoirs in the outskirts of the city at the main watershed regions of the Musi, which eventually became the Osman Sagar (1920) and the Himayat Sagar (1927) reservoirs. It was decided that these were to play the dual role of both controlling the floods and releasing water during droughts.
From Legacy to Heritage
With the construction of the two reservoirs, the Hussain Sagar is no longer an important source of water supply to the city. But, as the city began to develop over the decades, the lake being at the centre of the city and being that which physically separates the areas of Hyderabad and Secunderabad (often referred to as the “twin cities”’), it became an important identity to the people of the city and also because of its long history and legacy, it eventually gained an iconic ‘heritage site’ quality to it. Its rejuvenation and beautification process started when Hyderabad was still a princely state, but these efforts were amplified during 1987–88, when NTR was the
chief minister of the erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh. In the 90s many changes occurred, like the iconic Buddha statue was installed in the middle of the lake, the road by the tank was widened generously and 34 bronze statues of important figures that shaped the history of the state were installed on the stretch opposite to the lake. Till date the Tank Bund is considered as the world’s largest heart-shaped lake. Today, walkers and cyclists every morning enjoy the beautiful sunrise that forms a halo behind the head of the Buddha’s statue, couples compete to occupy the best benches to witness the sunset in the evening, and during any time of the year tourists are always queueing up for boat rides and trying to get the best possible pictures with the lake as the background, gathering wonderful souvenirs.
Interventions and Consequences
Today, the source of the tank bund is not the original tributary of the river Musi back in 1563, but four major canals (or ‘nalas’) from different parts of the city that make their way into the Tank Bund. All these four canals are always polluted with humongous quantities of toxic domestic and industrial waste, ultimately making their way into the lake through the inlets situated at the bottom. The stench is also very much a part of the Tank Bund experience, especially while one is on the road exiting the lake (people in cars with the windows closed are a bit luckier!). Musi remains to be one of the most polluted rivers in the country, being many times in the list of the central government’s National River Conservation Plan (NRCP). The issue was taken up many times by the state government and the local level institutions like the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA). Of the two major interventions to counter this problem, one was to intercept the waters reaching from these four canals, divert it to Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs) to an area about ten kilometers from the lake, and pump the treated water back into the lake. The problem is, the city generates about 1400 MLD of sewage per day and less than half of it is being able to be treated by the STPs, meaning, most of the untreated water is still entering the lake. On the other hand, with increasing urbanization and migration, the city’s population is only increasing by the day, and thus along with this the waste being produced is also increasing simultaneously. The second intervention that was tried was a rubber dam that was constructed near the High Court, to segregate the waste from the polluted water. This proved to be a rookie administrative error, because now it began to stink in the neighbouring locality and became a hub for mosquitos, and later this had to be aborted because of rageful complaints from the locals.
Old Tributaries, but Possible Threats
In this whole story, the first thing to be noted is that, the original tributary of the Musi river which actually fed the Hussain Sagar has completely vanished (depleted) overtime. Only further investigation will enlighten us about the reasons and the factors that led to this. Hence, the understanding of the problem should not just be limited to pollution, but eventual depletion of resources. Also, the Hussain Sagar started with an aim to provide for drinking water and irrigation, but since it had become a heritage icon overtime this is the only purpose for which it is being maintained and ‘managed’ today. Hence, this raises the question as to- do heritage sites only need to be conserved for their ‘aesthetic value’, why shouldn’t they also have a functional purpose? Heritage sites need to be made functional wherever it is possible, as by this the appreciation and value given to it will extend beyond the aesthetics and conservation has more chances to become bottom up.
“Managing” the Problem
In the first intervention by the Municipal Authority, the concern is that the water has to be treated in order to avoid it reaching into the Tank Bund. The concern is not that the water body itself has to be clean, and that the river is being polluted all through the canals, and hence not taking it as an opportunity to improve sewage treatment and sewerage network in the city, but just to not reach it to the heritage site. A similar governance perspective is also visible in the second intervention, where a rubber dam is constructed from a distance away to the cite, to segregate the pollution, neglecting the possibility of inconvenience and consequences that would be faced by the local people of that area, consequently making it a breeding ground for mosquitoes. So, a waste problem at one place is being solved by creating a health hazard at another place! Hence, I propose that this is not Waste Management but ‘Management of Waste’, that is, not tackling the root causes of the issue but just trying to “manage” it somehow, in order to avoid the pressure of the citizens of the whole city if the specific ‘Tank Bund’ area is polluted. But, it is not just limited to this, this way of dealing with the problem is also ‘Policy Injustice’ to the neighborhoods living away from the site along the canals of the river, and also to the people living downstream of the river, who must deal with polluted groundwater in their own localities. Often, when cleanliness drives and beautification campaigns for the Tank Bund are organized, the upper middle class citizens of the city not only fail to recognize other sections of people dealing with the same water body far away, but also do not acknowledge the fact that a huge chunk of the problem also lies in their own consumption patterns and lifestyles (Upadhya, 2009).
Towards a Convergence of Heritage and the Environment Agenda
When we see the state’s response, notwithstanding narrow sighted policy intervention, it is always trying to deal with waste management disregarding the involvement of social perceptions and practices that are involved in this (Castree, 2001). It is definitely not easy to deal with the
issue of waste management, especially in a highly populated city and specifically when it is connected to an important heritage site. But, the orientation must be not to just clean up the water body, but to stop people and the processes of littering in the first place and while enabling alternative ways of sustainable waste disposal. This I believe would be a positive and a sustainable intervention, than managing it for the short term, which will only amplify the problem and will also lead to additional problems. Also, since this is a unique case where a prominent heritage site is involved, we must also rethink the governance of such sites, as heritage sites are usually governed by a cannon of standardization that leads to exclusion (Harrison, 2010), heritage sites and conservation are inextricably linked to environmental issues, and hence they cannot work in isolation and contradiction of responses between the two. Notwithstanding the above criticism of how Hussain Sagar is perceived and ‘managed’, it still is
and will remain to be not only the heart of the city, but something that which is very close to the hearts of all the Hyderabadis. But, it is high time we acknowledge the interconnectedness of heritage and environmental issues and translate it into policy and governance based on social realities. Until then, the waters above and beneath continue to exist in contradiction.
