Hyderabad: Groundwater dips in city areas

HYDERABAD: Summer and water scarcity have come early for residents of Shaheennagar and its surroundings. Water levels are already down in the locality, a cluster of about two dozen colonies.

Inhabited by middle class and working class families, Shaheenagar has a more or less perennial shortage of water, but the problem peaks in summer with borewells — the only source of water — too going dry.

The civic authorities also have not done much to provide water to houses in the area. Local social activist Kareemuddin says several representations have been made to civic officials. “There are no drinking water pipelines here. Almost all the houses depend on bore- wells for water, and the ground water level has depleted already,” he says.

The local municipality supplies water through some pipelines connected to tanks built at street corners. Water from borewells in pumped into PVC tanks and supplied to households. Locals complain that borewells are beginning to run out of water due to depletion of ground water levels.

“Earlier, we got water supply for close to two hours. Now, they have reduced it to one hour. And if there repairs going on the line, then we are not supplied water for more than a week,” says Mirza Ghani Baig, a school teacher and a resident of Sadathnagar.  

Residents have begun hiring private tankers for water. “Almost all the residents depend on the bottled water or 20 litre containers for drinking purposes,” says a local woman.

Syed Abdul Rawoof, MPTC member, says the borewells are drying up because colonies came up on a hilly tract where ground water level is deep down. “Summer will bring more challenges when people will have to travel up to five kilometres to fetch water from other sources,” he said.

When contacted, Jalpally Municipality commissioner Mohd Saber Ali said that six overhead tanks are being built in the area. “Work on the construction of overhead tanks has started. By the year end, the tanks will be connected to Krishna water supply lines and all houses will be supplied drinking water,” he said.

He added that the government has sanctioned Rs 50 crore for various development works in Jalpally municipality.