Himayat Sagar level remains at bottom

Rajendranagar: With no fresh inflows from the upstream areas, the water level in Himayat Sagar reservoir still stands at 1741.80 ft close to the lowest sluice level of 1,733 ft while the permanent storage capacity is 1763.5 ft in the lake. The outflow is 10 million gallons per day from the reservoir.

While the area of water spread stands at 7.6 square meters to storage level, the catchment area covers almost 1307.95 Sq Km of radius encompassing 51 km area around the Qutub Shahi Lake.

Constructed during 1920 to 1927 AD, the Qutub Shahi reservoir was primarily designed to supply fresh water to the people of Hyderabad and to protect the city from floods. The reservoir, since has been serving as a primary source of drinking water apart from Osman Sagar to quench the thirst of the people of historic city.

"Even though the rains have started filling the water bodies around the state but still there is a short fall of inflow into Himayat Sagar from the upstream areas. Only in the wake of heavy downpour at upstream areas, the reservoir could be able to receive good inflows impacting the present water level in the reservoir," said the lake official.

The reservoir, that comes close to celebrate its centenary, has total 17 flood gates to release the water in the wake of reaching the water level to its full capacity. This reservoir used to supply water for drinking purpose for several areas under old city. The water from it is being pumped to Mir Alam Filter at Bahadurpura for treatment.

"The filter received approximately 8 million gallons of water per day while another 17 MGD of water is also supplied through Krishna River. After treating the water from Himayat Sagar together we would able to supply total 25 MGD of water to various localities of old city under division-I of HMWS&SB," said Yadagiri Reddy M(E) Mir Alam Filter. The reservoir is presently maintained by Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB).