How residents are breathing life back into Kapra lake
Hyderabad: Eveningwalkers at Kapra Cheruvu are witnessing a quiet but determined transformation. Devotees still arrive with flowers and idols, but before they reach the water, volunteers wearing green caps gently stop them. Pointing to steel composters and fish-shaped cages, they make a simple request: please let the lake breathe.
For nearly a decade, the Kapra Lake Revival Group (KLRG) functioned as an informal collective of walkers, residents and birdwatchers united by their love for the lake. On January 25, the group formally registered itself as a trust with four trustees — a move aimed at scaling up their efforts.
Managing Trustee Manognya Reddy said formal registration was necessary to access CSR funding and move beyond being “just a WhatsApp group.” The trust has now appointed one full-time worker, who patrols the bund, manages composters, segregates waste and prevents people from dumping large garbage bags into the lake.
KLRG operates four WhatsApp groups covering the north, south, east and west sides of the lake. Residents post daily concerns ranging from broken fencing and leaking manholes to late-night drinking and drug use. Volunteers escalate these complaints to GHMC and irrigation officials and, at times, even write letters to Telugu newspapers to draw attention to persistent issues.
The citizen-led initiative is tackling deeper structural problems in Kapra Cheruvu’s ecosystem. Earlier, the lake was part of a chain that carried surplus water to Charlapalli and eventually into the Musi. Over the years, many natural inlets were buried under roads and layouts, leaving the lake dependent on just a few storm water lines that were connected only in 2023 after repeated representations to the then GHMC Commissioner. Residents say sewage was officially diverted away from the lake following a High Court case around 2016. However, during heavy rains, some low-lying colonies reportedly breach storm water channels to divert mixed sewage and rainwater into the lake to prevent street flooding.
Physical challenges persist. Broken fencing at several locations allows easy access after dark, leading to drinking and garbage dumping. Though security guards are deployed intermittently, they are often withdrawn during monsoon dewatering, festival seasons or elections.
Adding to the problem, repeated dumping of silt and mud during idol immersions has raised portions of the lakebed, reducing its water-holding capacity. To address this, the Kapra team plans to organise a unique “desilting festival,” where nearly 1,000 volunteers will each remove a portion of silt by hand in a single day — turning restoration into collective action.
