Almost every discussion in Hyderabad, and possibly all of Telangana now centers around HYDRAA. For those who don’t already know about the agency, it stands for Hyderabad Disaster Response Authority. This agency is actively working on bringing down the illegal construction in buffer lands that must lawfully be left for natural water bodies.
This agency was newly formulated by the Revanth Reddy government in Telangana and the CM himself handpicked IPS A V Ranganath for the job. This sincere IPS officer is reportedly the mastermind behind the HYDRAA operations which are running riots on encroachers and land grabbers.
Ranganath and his HYDRAA agency’s main responsibility is to repossess the lands that come under buffer zones and FTL areas pertaining to water bodies.
In just a month at the office, Ranganath led HYDRAA to successfully regain 150 acres of land bringing down 140 constructions, including a whopping 50 multi-story buildings.
The firebrand IPS officer says more preventive measures will be taken in due course in order to make sure that there will be no more land-grabbing incidents in the city. He vows to take action to restore the buffer lands of around 185 lakes in the city. Nearly 60% of these lakes have observed land encroachments and an action plan is underway to reclaim these lands.
Not stopping there, the IPS officer revealed that a dedicated Police Station with 2 ACPs, 6 inspectors, and 30 staff will be formulated for HYDRAA. Even commoners can lodge their complaints on land grabbing and water body encroachments here.
The most significant power move from HYDRAA came with the agency taking down Nagarjuna’s N Convention in Madhapur. Going by the no-nonsense approach taken by the agency, there could be more such high-profile incidents in the next few weeks.