Water crisis hits Puttaparthi

Anantapur: Puttaparthi is reeling under a severe water crisis and the people living here were facing untold misery. Supplying water has become a major problem in the district even in Prashanti Nilayam, where the educational institutions and the super specialty hospital are located. The Satya Sai Trust was supplying water through tankers to the various institutions located adjacent to Prashanti Nilayam. Although the people of Puttaparthi need 20 lakh litres of water on a daily basis, the officials were only able to supply 5 lakh litres of water due to the frequent power cuts. In order to supply the remaining 15 lakh litres, the officials were facing several difficulties. Earlier, they used to fetch water from River Chitravati by installing bore wells but due to the sand mining for the construction of buildings nearby, the ground water resources were drying up. The bore wells also dried up and the water table fell considerably. With the result, water scarcity has escalated. The people of the town were demanding the stoppage of sand quarrying near Chitravati, which was going on unabated. They said that the unscheduled power cuts should be lifted so that the Satya Sai Baba Drinking Water Project could be implemented in the district smoothly without any hurdles.