Water woes to increase

Osmansagar, Himayatsagar likely to dry up by April

The city is bracing itself for even more intense water woes this coming summer. Going by past experience, citizens know that the duration and the quantity of the water supply will be gradually reduced in the city as summer reaches its peak.

Already, supplies of the precious liquid are dwindling. The city is being supplied with 330 million gallons of water daily, as against the normal daily supplies of 340 MGD.

Once the pumping begins from Himayatsagar and Osmansagar, there will be a shortage of 15 million gallons of water per day.

Though the Water Board has made arrangements for emergency pumping of water from Himayatsagar and Osmansagar, the exercise is yet to commence.

“We want to prolong the supply through gravity for as long as possible. We may start the pumping from Himayatsagar in a day or two, and by month end from Osmansagar,” Water Board chief general manager (transmission) Sundar Rami Reddy said. When the pumping from both Himayatsagar and Osmansagar commences, there will be an additional shortage of 15 MGD of water per day. The total daily supplies in the city would be reduced to 315 millions gallons per day.

Both these reservoirs are likely to dry up by Aprilend and then the total shortage would be 40 MGD per day.

The Water Board director (technical) S.P. Sarma said, in that case Krishna water would be diverted to the areas that are currently getting water supply from Osman-sagar and Himayatsagar.

As a result of this adjustment, the quantity and duration of water supply in some of the areas is likely to come down.

Only 10.507 tmc feet of water is available in the reservoirs of Osmansagar, Himayatsagar, Singur, Manjira and Akkampally on March 5 this year as against 19.130 tmc feet on March 5 last year.