Hyderabad water board gets emergency plan to provide drinking water

Hyderabad: First time in history, the city water Board may have to press the emergency button in its bid to provide drinking water to Hyderabad.

Though the monsoon predictions this year are better than normal, The Metropolitan Water Board is gearing up to use emergency pumps to tap dead storage waters of Nagarjunasagar and Yellampally, the only available water sources for the city, beyond June 15 this year.

“There is no problem till June 15 as of now, but beyond that we will have to adopt emergency plans to meet the drinking water needs of citizens,” said Water Board managing director Dana Kishore to DC on Monday.

Even assuming that there will be good rainfall from June 1 onwards, the actual inflows into Godavari and Krishna rivers from other states are unpredictable due to the number of projects in the upstream states that are also dry.

On irrigation engineers' advise, the Water Board has invested Rs 7 crore on high velocity pumps and motors to pump Nagar-junasagar Dam water into the Puttamgandi reservoir even at lower levels. The pumps will be ready by May 15.

Telangana sets up heat portal, sensors put at 885 places
The TS government on Monday launched a web portal for heat wave predictions and resources available at places in case of emergencies.

Deputy Chief Minister Mohd Mahmood Ali, who launched the portal at the Secretariat, said sensors had been installed at as many as 885 points across the state to collect real-time data on weather.

“The data will be analysed to arrive at a conclusion if any heat wave-like condition is expected. Accordingly, people will be warned though SMS. Additionally the portal will also maintain statistics of the historic temperature trends in the state,” Mr Ali said.

He said 19 deaths have been officially reported, contrary to official release issued two weeks ago which put the casualties at 66. However, he later clarified that the official death toll figure was 35.