The Telangana government got guidance from experts from across the country on river management during a panel discussion on ‘Musi Rejuvenation & Blue-Green Infrastructure in Hyderabad’ held as part of the Telangana Rising Summit at Bharat Future City on Tuesday.
Tapas Paul, a former senior environmental specialist at the World Bank, said the plan to revive the Musi River needs to be more ambitious and set a real benchmark for India. Over time, the river which was the lifeline of the city of Hyderabad was turned into a sewer and without any reversal in river pollution practices, the current development model of the Musi could only create a cleaner and larger sewer.
“When your intention is sewerage, it will be sewerage,” Mr. Paul said, urging policymakers to think of an area of influence larger than 110 square kilometers for a better Hyderabad in 2047.
He proposed a model adopted by the city of New York, where denser development on a smaller area left the city with more open spaces.
“Take 30 square kilometers for high-density development and give 80 square kilometers back to the river for its fungi, wetlands and ecosystem services,” Mr Paul said, suggesting mixed-use, mixed-use development rather than recreation and entertainment alone.
Environmentalists Rajendra Singh said that the river has a right to land and a right to flow. The river land cannot be used for setting up industrial and commercial complexes, he warned. Technology and engineering should be used with concern and unless the flow of the river is clean and continuous, it will be a problem. He also emphasized the need to make people participants in development.
Arjun Sasidharan, a flood management expert, found a flaw in infrastructure planning based on an outdated payback period calculation for watersheds.
Every year, the intensity of rains increases with a narrowing duration, while the carrying capacity of the Hyderabad river decreases. Even moderate water levels in the river and dams combined with light rain could lead to flooding in such a scenario.
But future infrastructure being planned now takes into account yesterday’s climate, he said, suggesting a probabilistic approach with weights assigned to infrastructure, socio-political, economic and natural vulnerability. The effects of the compounds need to be studied and hydrologically analyzed before they come up with a solution. The creation of buffers, their placement and their extent should be based on this approach, he said.
Explaining the Telangana government’s plans for the Musi River, Minister D. Sridhar Babu, in his opening address, said the vision of blue-green infrastructure improves mobility, helps recreation, security and real estate confidence that will drive growth, all combined to enhance climate security.
Published – 9 Dec 2025 22:23 IST
