Acute water scarcity stares at Suryapet

Suryapet (Nalgonda): Suryapet, one of the business centres in Nalgonda district, is facing acute drinking water scarcity even before summer has set in.

Measures by the Suryapet civic authorities have not yielded results in mitigating the drinking water problem in the grade-I municipality, which has a population of about 1.05 lakh. It has floating population from surrounding villages, as it is a trade centre.

This town requires 27 MLD (million litre per day), but only 13 MLD of water is being supplied, almost half of the demand.

According to the World Health Organisation standards, 165 litres of water should be made available to each person daily.

If the supply is less, then the area will be considered to be facing shortage of potable water.

Drinking water is being supplied in the town from two filter beds.

A filter bed with capacity of 13.5 MLD was set up at Choudari Cheruvu, which is the main water source. It receives water from the Musi Project. The filter bed at Dosapadu Cheruvu (tank), with a capacity of 10 MLD, is another drinking water source of the town. These two filter beds supply only 13 MLD of water, leaving a shortage of 14 MLD.

In the town there are 14,456 water taps and 756 hand bore pumps managed by the Suryapet Municipality. Almost half of the pumps have become defunct.

Since there is no alternative, the residents are forced to purchase packaged drinking water , which causes additional financial burden to them.

Exploiting the situation, more than 100 mineral water plants have come up in and around the town.

They transact nearly Rs 1 crore worth business every month, charging Rs 15- 20 for a 20 litre can. Mineral water stalls have come up in the town and selling a litre water for Rs 5.

Though proposals have been prepared to bring the Krishna water to the town, they have remained on paper for years. Residents of the town are pinning their hopes on the water grid programme to end the scarcity.

By: P Srinivas