Reservoirs dry up, Visakhapatnam stares at water crisis

Visakhapatnam: With the water-levels in various reservoirs supplying water to Vizag city depleting fast, water scarcity was evident in several wards in the city, particularly on the outskirts. The decreasing availability of water from the Yeleru canal and Godavari river has been forcing the officials to draw more water from other resources. The water-level in Gosthani river reached the dead storage, despite being recharged every now and then with water from Tatipudi while the Gambheeram reservoir has dried up completely.

However, the GVMC is confident of managing with the water supply till the end of May but if the southwest monsoon gets delayed, the city may face severe water crisis. As part of summer action plan, the officials had initially planned to pump about 300 cusecs of water from both Godavari and Yeleru reservoirs but the water drawls from these two resources has not been crossing 180 cusecs due to reduced inflows. As a direct consequence, the duration of water supply has come down in several parts of the city.

While the Yeleru/Godavari contributes about 22 MGD of water to Vizag city, the Raiwada reservoir supplies about 15 MGD followed by Tatipudi with 11 MGD and Meghadri Gedda 8.5 MGD on any ordinary day. With the onset of summer, the equations have completely changed and the officials are pumping about 20 MGD from the Meghadri Gedda to compensate the decreased water availability from other water sources. CPM city unit secretary, Dr. B. Ganga Rao alleged that the TD government’s failure in assessing the future needs of the rapidly expanding Vizag city has led to problematic situation.

"All wards in Gajuwaka zone are receiving municipal water only once in two days and the situation is the same at the 66, 69, 70 and 71st wards in the city,” he added.  The wards falling under Zone-1 and Zone-2 are facing
acute water shortage. Poor people living in the slums and hilly areas are the most affected by the unscheduled water cuts. Many major industries are also on the brink of shutdown during the summer due to water woes. We demand the government not to give permission for the proposed IPL matches in Vizag city," he added.

A GVMC official informed that they can manage it through the month of May without any crisis."But if we don’t receive rains early in June, the situation will become unmanageable," he added.