Telangana Spotlight: A glittering view, a gasping lake Premium

Explore the paradox of Durgam Cheruvu, where stunning views mask a troubling decline driven by bureaucratic negligence and urban encroachment.

As Hyderabad eases into evening, Durgam Cheruvu begins to perform — framed by height, washed in light, carried by music — offering a carefully composed spectacle to those watching from above. From a fourth-floor rooftop restaurant, the surface of the lake glitters like a string of diamonds, the suspension bridge over it glows in tricolour hues and trance music drifts through the open air. Diners settle in, drinks in hand, mesmerised by the view.

“Within 10 minutes, the smell fades from the mind and the sight becomes enthralling. Then we get lost in conversation,” says a second-time visitor to the restaurant-cum-bar.

On the other side, at the boating point, visitors queue up for a speedboat ride — ₹500 for 25 minutes — zipping through waters studded with floating patches of gurrapudekka (water hyacinth). The pilot steers the boat with practiced ease, but the stench of rotting organic matter is overpowering.

“We resumed boating only a week ago. We had to halt boating operations as visitors were complaining about the foul smell and the water had become unnavigable. It took us 20 days to clear the gurrapudekka,” says an official of Telangana Tourism.

Between the curated spectacle of leisure, built around upscale restaurants and a carefully staged stunning view of the lake, and the nausea-inducing reality of decay lies the paradox of Durgam Cheruvu. One of the larger water bodies to have survived decades of pressure from builders and official interventions, it is still being quietly altered: its water level has been lowered and its edges reshaped to free up land.

The mechanics of that damage become visible at the southern edge of the lake. Descending a flight of steps towards the sluice gate, an Irrigation Department official recalls a moment from last monsoon which, he suggests, changed the lake’s behaviour.