Water scheme cuts SCB’s supply by 60%

Residents suffer; receive water only once a week

Friday was the 49th consecutive day the colonies mainly in Marredpally and Kharkhana suffered from acute water shortage, with supply being done only once a week, and the pressure for that being extremely low.

At least 60 per cent of the agreed amount of water supply to the Secunderabad Cantonment Board has been cut over the last one and a half months since the Metro Water announced the daily water scheme in the core city. Water meant for SCB’s daily supply is cut and is given to the core city to keep the daily water scheme going. The cantonment, on a daily basis, is supposed to get 6.8million gallons per day. But, for the last 48 days, it’s getting 4-4.2gallons per day.

For the first time in the last 5 years, the SCB has been deprived of the agreed water.

The affected colonies are, in SCB ward, the 5 Rukmini Devi Colony, Jyothi Colony, Brooklyn Colony, Vasavi Colony, the Radhika Colony and Shobha Nagar Colony, as also Gandhi Nagar and Sanjeeviah Nagar. In Ward 4, the affected areas are LIC Colony, Krishna Nagar, Syndicate Bank Colony, Baskar Rao Gardens, Railway Colony, SCB Ward 3, the entire Kharkhana (residential, commercial and slum areas) including Textbook Colony, Musareddy Guide LIC colony, Picket, Laxmi Nagar and the entire Vikrampuri. In Ward 6, affected areas are the entire Gun Rock area. Water supply to all these areas have been reduced.

Ramesh Kumar of LIC Colony complained, “In the last 7 days, we could collect only four vessels of water and the pressure is very low. I have spent over `3,000 on HMWSSB tankers and for buying water cans from the reservoirs. Sakshi Agarwal from Vikrampuri “All said, attempts of calling SCB officials have failed. We are booking tankers almost every second day. We the residents do not pay the water bill because we have not been receiving water.”

SCB Water wing superintendent Raj Kumar said, “Almost 60 per cent of the supply has been cut for the past 49 days. We have been calling the HMWSSB division general manager. The answer we get is, ‘We are releasing the water’, but why are the SCB reservoirs not receiving it? SCB office receives numerous complaints every day. We will take it up with the managing director of HMWSSB.”

Ward 5 member J. Rama Krishna added, “The metro water board had in February started a scheme to supply water on a daily basis, but this has reduced supply to SCB without sufficient or proper planning. Almost 60 per cent of the supply has been cut short. Daily water supply is only to fulfil the promise made by the state government and this has deprived the SCB residents of water.

A senior official from HMWSSB added, “The distribution of water to SCB will be discussed soon with municipal minister K. T. Rama Rao.”