A spiderweb of 1,600 mm pipelines have been laid under the edge of the Shahatim Talab or lake on the western side of Golconda Fort. Away from the two main entrances of Banjari Darwaza and Mecca Darwaza, the lake is not part of the tourist itinerary but is key to the geological stability of the medieval fortress. Nearly four years after a news report in these columns, the Telangana High Court is set to hear a petition to protect the fort from further destruction on March 26.
“One pipeline brings the sewage from the Toli Chowki side and another from MD Lines. The pipeline is laid under the pathway till that temple,” says a Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation worker waiting in a makeshift office on the edge of the lake.
The court ruling will help decide whether the lake, fort and the moat continue to exist in the current shape or get irretrievably changed. The court took up the suo motu hearing of the case following a report in these columns titled Pipeline work spells doom for Golconda Fort in 2019. The destruction of the moat and the subsequent ingress of water under the parapet wall has led to the bulging of the wall in the Naya Qila area.
The GHMC had made an interlocutory application that it will lay a pipeline around the Golconda Fort. How the GHMC will execute the project without affecting the structural stability of 500-year-old structure in one of the most densely populated areas of the city is the big question.
