In its reply to the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board, the Taj Banjara Hotel situated at Banjara Hills, has stated that it would construct its own sewage treatment plant (STP) by the end of the current financial year, that is by March 21, 2013.
The hotel was replying to a show-cause notice issued by the APPCB for violating pollution control rules regarding disposal of the sewage it generated, and not having its own STP as required. Though it admitted that it did not have its own STP, the hotel management said that it was not dumping the effluent into the Banjara Lake, but is sending it into the Hyderabad Metro Water Works Sewer Line. However, this has not mollified the APPCB. “We shall verify where their effluent are being sent and where all this untreated sewage ultimately ends up. If it is going into a water body that is not supposed to be polluted, and does not go to any common sewage treatment plant, action will be taken,” an APPCB official told Deccan Chronicle.
The violation had allegedly been going on unchecked all these years and was brought to the notice of the APPCB by a team from the ministry of environment and forests that visited the area in connection with the rejuvenation and rehabilitation of the Hamed Khan Kunta or Banjara Lake, the only lake in AP to be selected under the National Lake Conservation Plan. APPCB officials revealed that show-cause notices have also been issued to the office of a political party too.