Secunderabad cries for water; Water Board boasts of five months supplies

Despite the claims of adequate water reserves that will last five months, it looks like the Water Board is turning a Nelson’s eye to acute water scarcity in Secunderabad. Delay in the onset of monsoon and drop in groundwater levels have left the residents in a quandary as their tapes have turned dry.

The worst hit areas are RK Puram, Safilguda, Neredmet, Vinayak Nagar, Defence Colony and colonies abutting Sainikpuri. The residents are unhappy with the Board as water is pumped once in 7 to 10 days. Worst, it takes more than 10 days to get a water tanker as bookings are more and the Board is not able to cope with the difficult situation.

“Some of the consumers in the city get piped water on alternate days and the maximum delay is four days. We pay Rs 212 as water charges every month as others, but end up at the tail end of the pipeline,” fumed Dayanidhi, a resident of Officers Colony in RK Puram.

“Are we second class citizens?” he asks, referring to the state of affairs in the erstwhile Malkajgiri municipality. The Water Board is the sole supplier of water through tankers in the city. With a ban on private tankers, the price for 5000 litres of bore water hovers anywhere between Rs 700 and Rs 1000. The tankers cater to only apartments and the board refuses to entertain requests of new clients.

“We are under a huge pressure to supply water through tankers. Earlier, we used to receive 50 bookings. But now it is 850 bookings a day,” informs the supervisor at the Sainikpuri pump house.

The pump house caters to a large segment of population as the area is witnessing horizontal and vertical growth. The crisis has aggravated due to erratic power supply and load shedding.

“If you order for a tanker today, you will get the supply after 10 days,” is the refrain of tanker owners and drivers. The groundwater is receding at an alarming rate due to overuse, failure of monsoon and drying up of water bodies. The residents of Ashray Apartments in RK Puram failed to find an ounce of water even after drilling to a depth of 1,500 feet.

As a result, the residents are forced to go for rationing of water in rented houses and apartments. They wake up at ungodly hours to fill their quota of buckets and drums. A wholesale rice trader, expressing his unhappiness with rationing of water in his apartment in Vinayak Nagar, said, “We have to use water within the stipulated time or else one has to go to a pubic tap or bore well to fetch water.”

An associate professor in Venkateshwara Officers Colony had to move to his brother-in-law’s house after their dependable all-season bore had gone bonkers. The inmates of Anil Residency in the area get up at 3 am to fill their quota of water.

The old timers recall that the situation was better when they were under the Malkajgiri municipality. “Malkajgiri municipality used to pump water once in four days. But now the situation has become worse. We are not sure when the water would be supplied,” remarked SP Krishna, a resident of Officers Colony, RK Puram.

Narender of Kakatiya Nagar is making rounds of the pump house to know his tanker’s status and is still waiting for the past 9 days for a tanker. According to details available at the Sainikpuri pump house tankers booked on June 29 have been cleared till July 8.