Hyderabad: Dry summer for villages under Bhagiratha'

Hyderabad: This summer, residents living within the Outer Ring Road (ORR) radius will face acute water shortage due to the delay in ‘Urban Mission Bhagiratha’ project works. 

The project aims to provide individual tap connections to every household in more than 180 villages by constructing 180 reservoirs. The Water Board has managed to construct a mere two  reservoirs against 180 and not a single tap connection was given in eight months.

The state government had unveiled a massive programme under ‘Urban Mission Bhagiratha’ to provide tap water to every household in 183 villages in 12 mandals and seven municipalities located beyond Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and within ORR limits. The government is spending '628 crore on the project, which involves laying of 285 km of trunk mains and another 1,712 km of distribution mains. 

The Water Board is constructing 183 service reservoirs as part of the TRS government’s pet project, Mission Bhagiratha. With a one-year deadline as the target, the Water Board aims to provide door-to-door tap connections to every household in the mandals, including Saroornagar, Maheshwaram, Rajendranagar, Shamshabad, Hayathnagar, Ibrahimpatnam, Ghatkesar, Keesara, Shameerpet, Medchal, Qutbullapur, Patancheru and Ramchandrapuram, with a total of 180 reservoirs constructed to store 44.7 million litres of water.  The tender for this project was approved on June 17 and the agreement was signed on July 9. 

To quench the thirst of residents in villages on the outskirts of the city during summer, municipal administration and urban development minister K.T. Rama Rao, while laying the foundation stone  at Kompally in the Qutubullahpur mandal during August last year, had asked the water board officials to expedite the works and try their best to finish the project before  summer. 

However, his instructions fell on deaf ears. Officials have completed the construction of two reservoirs out of 180 and did not provide a single tap connection. When asked  about this,  a senior Water Board official said that the works under Urban Mission Bhagiratha have been grounded and the Water Board has constructed two reservoirs in Hayathnagar mandal. 

He said that the works are going at a rapid pace and the Water Board will complete the project by October. He said that the residents of these villages are getting seven million gallons of water a day. 

and, once the project is completed, they will get up to 30 MGD of water a day.   The project is intended to provide 135 litres of water every day to individual households within ORR limits.