The Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Monitoring and Protection Authority (HYDRA) on Saturday demolished the N-Convention Centre, owned by popular actor Nagarjuna even as the Telangana High Court ordered the authorities to stop demolition.
Justice T. Vinod Kumar issued an interim order in the afternoon but by then HYDRA personnel had almost completed the demolition.
The counsel of the N-Convention management argued that the authorities carried out the demolition disregarding the stay orders issued by the court.
Meanwhile, HYDRA officials continued the demolition of other illegal structures around the N-Convention in the Madhapur area in Cyberabad.
In an operation launched in the morning amid tight security by police, HYDRA personnel deployed bulldozers to pull down the N-Convention, located on 10 acres of land.
The property has been under scrutiny for years following allegations that it was constructed in the Full Tank Level (FTL) area and buffer zone of the Thammidikunta Lake.
The N-Convention Centre had allegedly encroached upon 1.12 acres of the FTL area and an additional 2 acres within the buffer zone.
Despite the allegations, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) had not taken any action against the Convention Centre.
There were allegations that the management of the Convention Centre used influence to bypass regulatory actions from the agencies concerned.
According to officials, the FTL area of Thammidikunta Lake is approximately 29.24 acres. As many as 19 illegal structures came up in 2014 on 2.39 acres of FTL area. Another 32 illegal structures were built on 4.69 acres in 2020.
The lake’s buffer zone is spread over 10 acres. Of this, 2.05 acres were encroached in 2014 to build 23 structures. Another 81 unauthorised structures came up on 5.02 acres in 2020.
Actor Nagarjuna took to ‘X’ to deny allegations of encroachment. He posted that he was pained by the unlawful manner of demolition contrary to existing stay orders and court cases.
“The land is a Patta land, and not even an inch of tank plan is encroached. In respect of the building constructed inside the private land, there is a stay order granted against any earlier illegal notice for demolition. Today clearly, the demolition was carried out wrongfully based on misinformation. No notice was issued prior to carrying out the demolition this morning. As a law-abiding citizen, if the court before which the matter is pending, had decided against me, I would have carried out the demolition myself,” he stated.
“We would be seeking appropriate relief from the court in relation to the wrong actions carried out by the authorities,” he added.
Minister for Roads and Buildings, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, complained to HYDRA about the illegal construction of the N-Convention Centre on August 21. He also enclosed with his complaint the FTL map showing the encroachment and the Google Earth map.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy had also raised the issue of alleged encroachment of the lake by N-Convention in the Telangana Assembly in 2014 when he was an MLA of Telugu Desam Party (TDP). He had slammed then TRS government for not taking any action.
The Congress government recently constituted HYDRA for Telangana Core Urban Region (TCUR) for the purpose of disaster management, asset protection and other functions.
This body has also been tasked with the protection of government assets like parks, layout open spaces, playgrounds, lakes and nalas.
Headed by IPS officer A. V. Ranganath, HYDRA has been demolishing illegal structures in and around the city for the last couple of weeks to reclaim the encroached land of water bodies.
It demolished unauthorised constructions near Gandipet reservoir on the outskirts last week.
HYDRA personnel deployed bulldozers to pull down the structures at Khanapur in the Full Tank Level (FTL) of the reservoir across the Musi River in Rangareddy district.
On August 10, HYDRA demolished illegal structures on heritage lake Bum-Rukn-Ud-Dowla in Shastripuram.
Recently, the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) revealed that the extent of lakes in Hyderabad reduced by 61 per cent between 1979 and 2024.