Hyderabad lakes and HYDRAA: how to check FTL and buffer zones before you buy a flat

Rules and rates as of 15 October 2026.

Hyderabad grew around hundreds of lakes and kuntas, and a lot of it grew into them. Since HYDRAA, the city's asset-protection agency, began acting against encroachments on lakes, many buyers have learned two terms the hard way: FTL and buffer zone. This explainer sets out what the rules say, where to look up a lake's boundary, and what is at stake if a flat turns out to sit on the wrong side of the line.

FTL and buffer zone, in plain words

The Full Tank Level (FTL) is the boundary of a lake when it is full. It is a surveyed line on a map, not wherever the water happens to be in a dry month. Under the building rules, the FTL boundary is measured and certified by the Irrigation and Revenue Departments.

The buffer zone is a strip of land around the FTL (or along a river or nala) that is meant to stay green and free of buildings, even if the land is privately owned.

What the rules say

The governing text is Rule 3(a) of the Andhra Pradesh Building Rules, 2012, issued as G.O.Ms.No.168 of the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department on 7 April 2012. Telangana still applies it: HMDA's lake notifications and HYDRAA's own website both cite GO 168.

Rule 3(a)(i) says no building or development activity is allowed in the bed of a river or nala, or in the FTL of any lake, pond, cheruvu or kunta, or on shikam lands. Rule 3(a)(ii) says these water bodies must be kept as a recreational or green buffer zone, with no building within these distances:

Water body	No-construction buffer	Measured from
Lake, tank or kunta of 10 hectares and above	30 m	FTL boundary
Lake, tank or kunta below 10 hectares; shikam lands	9 m	FTL boundary
River, inside municipal corporation, municipality or nagar panchayat limits	50 m	River boundary
River, outside those limits	100 m	River boundary
Canal, vagu, nala or storm-water drain wider than 10 m	9 m	Defined boundary
Canal, vagu, nala or storm-water drain up to 10 m wide	2 m	Defined boundary

Three details matter to a buyer:

• The buffer is not a setback. Rule 3(a)(iii) lets a developer count the buffer as part of the layout's tot lot or organised open space, but expressly "not for setback requirements". A building's setbacks must be found outside the buffer.
• A road may run in it. Where feasible, a lake buffer can carry a ring road or promenade of at least 12 m. HMDA's lake notifications describe this differently, as an optional 12-foot walking and cycling track inside the 30 m strip, and also cite a later amendment (G.O.Ms.No.7). The two texts do not match; the GO's own wording is the safer guide.
• Master plans can override. The buffer rules apply "unless and otherwise specified" in the Master Plan or Zonal Development Plan, so a specific plan can set a different line.

Where HYDRAA comes in

HYDRAA stands for the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency. Its website says it works under the MA&UD Department and covers the Core Urban Region inside the Outer Ring Road, through three commissionerates. Its Asset Protection Wing protects lakes, parks, open spaces and government land from encroachment.

The website lists the sources of its powers as the GHMC Act, 1955, the WALTA Act, 2002, GO 168, GO 129 and other government orders. It does not publish the order that set it up or the amendment that gave it its powers; its GOs page showed no documents when we checked. For complaints about water encroachment or boundary disputes, HYDRAA points to the 1070 toll-free helpline.

The practical point for a buyer: in the Core Urban Region, a building in a lake's FTL or buffer is no longer just a planning violation that may sit on file. An agency exists whose job is to act on it.

How to check a lake before you pay

HMDA's lakes portal (lakes.hmda.gov.in) lets you search lakes by district, mandal or circle, village, lake ID or name. For each lake it shows the date of the preliminary notification, the date of the final notification where there is one, links to the FTL and cadastral maps, and a column on the survey numbers and area affected by the FTL and buffer zone.

1. Get the project's survey numbers and village from the sale deed, the building permission or the TG-RERA page.
2. Search every lake and kunta in that village on the portal, not only the one you can see from the site. Small kuntas are easy to miss.
3. Match survey numbers. If the project's survey number appears in the affected list, ask the builder to show exactly which part of it is in the FTL or buffer.
4. Look at the map's status. A sample cadastral map we opened, for Rangadhamuni Kunta in Kukatpally, is stamped "Draft Copy". Many lakes have only a preliminary notification. A preliminary line can still move after objections.
5. Ask for the FTL demarcation behind the permission. Since the Irrigation and Revenue Departments certify the FTL, ask the builder what boundary the plan was approved against, and from which department.
6. Use the buffer width that fits the lake's size. A tower 20 m from a 12-hectare lake's FTL is inside the 30 m buffer; the same distance from a 5-hectare kunta's FTL is outside the 9 m buffer.

Telangana's BuildNow portal also lists G.O.Ms.No.16 of 16 January 2026 on transferable development rights (TDR) for land affected by FTL and buffer zones. We could not read its text, so its terms are not covered here.

An illustrative loss: a ₹75 lakh flat

This is a made-up scenario to show the arithmetic, not a description of any real case. Assume a ₹75 lakh flat bought with ₹15 lakh of the buyer's own money and a ₹60 lakh home loan at an assumed 8.5% for 20 years. Three years later, the building is found to be inside a lake buffer and cannot be occupied.

EMI = P × r × (1 + r)ⁿ ÷ ((1 + r)ⁿ − 1), with P = ₹60,00,000, r = 8.5% ÷ 12 and n = 240 months. That gives an EMI of ₹52,069.

• 36 EMIs paid: ₹18,74,498, of which ₹14,83,659 is interest and only ₹3,90,839 is principal.
• Cash already out of pocket: ₹15,00,000 + ₹18,74,498 = ₹33,74,498.
• Loan still owed to the bank: ₹56,09,161. The loan does not vanish with the building.
• Total: ₹33,74,498 + ₹56,09,161 = ₹89,83,659, the full ₹75 lakh price plus three years' interest, before stamp duty, registration and interiors.

Whether any of that can be recovered from the builder, and how, is a question for a property lawyer, and depends on the agreement, the approvals and the RERA registration.