Musi Jan Andolan publishes a point-by-point rebuttal of the riverfront project report

Hyderabad Stories published this report on 11 October 2026 as part of a review of March 2026. It was drafted with AI assistance from the reports listed at the end, each read in full; quotations are as those reports printed them. Photo above — The Musi River at Purana Pul, Hyderabad.

On 13 March 2026 Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy unveiled the Phase 1 Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the Musi Riverfront Development Project at Hotel Taj Krishna. The next day the Musi Jan Andolan — a collective of civil-society organisations — answered it point by point.

What the coalition disputed

• Purpose. It suspected the project's real aim could be supplying water to data centres, which it called "extractive, exploitative, and anti-people", pointing to a passage in the Chief Minister's speech linking a groundwater crisis to data-centre water.
• Approach. It argued the river cannot be restored while being treated as a canal for boating with barrages; that pumping Godavari water to Osmansagar is costly and energy-intensive; and that concrete embankments would raise flood risk by narrowing the channel and removing floodplains.
• Pollution. Sewage treatment plants, it said, cannot treat toxic industrial effluent, and no plan to curb industrial discharge was set out.
• Displacement. It cited demolitions of more than 300 houses in Shankar Nagar, Malakpet and other Old City areas in October 2024, with rehabilitation grievances still pending, and said the project company had given inconsistent cost estimates and numbers of affected families.

The coalition called for an overall review and a full assessment of the project's social, ecological and financial costs. The report it rebutted did not carry a government response.

Sources

• Hyderabad activists call out contradictions in Telangana CM's Musi project — Siasat, 14 March 2026