Differently-abled students at the Government Home for Ortho Handicapped at Sagar Road in LB Nagar had a tough time as the ground floor of their hostel was completely flooded due to the heavy rain on Friday night. About 40 students living on the ground floor were moved to the second floor as water gushed into their building. Hostel authorities later pumped out the water, but the students were unable to get back.
Inmates complained that the situation had been the same since the hostel had been set up in this rented building and the concerned authorities had not done anything to fix the problem. “It was 3 am in the morning when water started gushing in from the ground; It rose to almost four feet. Most of us were sleeping and we had to rush to the second floor. Now we are adjusting in the dining hall and in the television room,” said Saidulu from Nalgonda, who has been staying in the hostel for the past four years.
There are 230 differently-abled students living in the hostel. They say water stagnation here has been common every monsoon. The students have made representations several times, but so far the authorities haven’t arranged for a permanent building. The hostel was set up at Sagar Road in 2006 in a private building. Warden Vasudeva Reddy said that they had asked the building owner to fix the problem, but the owner, in turn, has asked them to vacate the building. Superintendent for hostels for differently-abled Vijaya Kumar, meanwhile, said that a place had been identified for setting up a permanent building for the hostel and the construction would start soon.
Meanwhile, more than 15 places in the old city witnessed water-logging till afternoon as a result of Friday night’s heavy rain. A house collapsed at Dabeerpura while a wall collapsed in Hanuman-nagar. However, no casualties were reported. Municipality authorities claimed that they had attended to all complaints on time and had resolved them. Places like Murtazanagar, Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Moosaram Bagh, Lal Darwaza, N.M. Guda, Kishan Bagh, Talab Katta, Chatrinaka and Uppuguda were inundated and people couldn’t come out of their houses in several places as water had entered basements, ground floors etc. After the house collapsed in Dabeerpura, municipal authorities started demolishing dilapidated buildings in the old city area as they posed a threat to the lives of the locals.