Hyderabad: Devotees’ hopes of taking a holy dip at Edupayala, about 50 km from the city, for Mahasivratri on March 7 appear to have dried up.
For the first time in the 600-year history of the Durga Bhavani temple, the Edupayala canal and lake have run dry.
The temple located in the Nagsan forest of Papannapet mandal in Medak district gets nearly one lakh pilgrims from across the state, apart from devotees from Maharashtra and Karnataka, during Mahashivaratri.
The Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy government in the 1990s had issued a GO to releasing 0.25 TMC ft of water from Singur to Edupayala for the festival to enable pilgrims to take the holy dip.
Since then, the government used to water every year. This time, Singur has dried up and the hope of water is the Ghanpur project and ponds located further upstream of Ghanpur. However, water at the Ghanpur project is at the dead storage level.
Officials from the irrigation department are trying to supply water to Edupayala by pumping water from the Ghanpur project. Medak district irrigation superintendent engineer V. Padma Rao told this newspaper, “We have 0.25 TMC ft at Ghanpur to supply Edupayala by Mahashivaratri,” he said.
Officials from the Panchayat Raj and rural water supply and sanitation departments are implementing an action plan to clean up Edupayala.
