The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Warangal faces acute water crisis

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Monday, Aug 30, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Warangal faces acute water crisis

By Gollapudi Srinivasa Rao

WARANGAL, AUG. 29. People of the city are in for a major shock, as the corporation officials have said they would not be able to supply drinking water from September 1 as all the sources had dried up.

Crisis since July

The main source, Lower Manair Dam (LMD), Karimnagar, had reached its lowest level while the three summer storage tanks in Warangal have gone dry. The corporation, which has been supplying drinking water to Warangal once in five days, and to Kazipet and Hanamkonda once a week, now says it is helpless.

The crisis has been existing since July when the Government released small quantities from the LMD through the Kakatiya canal. As the quantity was inadequate, the officials, instead of storing up the tanks, directly supplied the same to the residents.

As against the actual capacity of 785 mcft, the Dharmasagar tank has totally gone dry while with the actual capacity of 153 mcft, the Bhadrakali tank now has only a mere 5 mcft. The Waddepally tank, which was supposed to store 143 mcft, now has below eight mcft of water.

The statements being issued by the Municipal Comissioner, K Subrahamanyam, that they would seek police protection to draw from the dead storage of LMD, Karimnagar and the Major Irrigation Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah's statement that they would not mind spending any amount to maintain minimum supply of drinking water goes to indicate the impending danger. Various political parties in Karimnagar have registered their protest against drawing the water from the LMD to supply to Warangal town.

Contingency plan

With a view to woo the public, now the district administration says that they have come up with a contingency plan. This is to spend Rs 40 lakhs to pump water from the LMD and transport the same to Warangal. Another plan is to spend Rs 80 lakhs to engage more than 100 tankers as the supplies through the taps would be stopped from September 1 and to dig as many as 30 borewells in the tank beds of Bhadrakali and Waddepalli.

Since long, the Warangal Municipal Corporation was not able to meet the actual demand of 2.5 mcft and has started supplying drinking water once in two days, three days and now once a week. According to the officials, the Engineer-in-chief would visit Warangal on September 31 to take stock of the situation, while Mayor T Rajeshwar Rao left for the US on a holiday.

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