Officials told to take steps to solve drinking water problem

Ongole: Minister for energy, forests, environment, science and technology Balineni Srinivasa Reddy, Minister for education Audimulapu Suresh conducted the first review meeting with the district officials on Sunday.

They reviewed drinking water supply in the district with collector Dr Pola Bhaskara, joint collector S Nagalakshmi, additional joint collector Dr A Siri along with the Irrigation, RWS and municipal officials at the NSP Guest House.

The collector explained that there are 1028 panchayats and 2,345 habitations in the district. He said that the district is suffering from drought for the last five years and is facing 56.70 per cent deficiency in rain for 2019. He explained that 1,198 habitations in 581 panchayats are covered under 52 multi-village schemes.

He said that they are providing drinking water to 769 habitations in 43 mandals of 10 assembly constituencies with 9,604 trips by 1,351 tankers, under drought mitigation programme. He submitted that 5.68 TMC feet of water are required to fill 228 drinking water tanks by July end from Nagarjuna Sagar canal and required Rs 48.22 crore as funds to address water scarcity in the district. He requested the ministers to take initiative for releasing the same by the government.

Balineni Srinivasa Reddy said that water scarcity is haunting the whole district. He ordered the municipal engineer Sundara Ramireddy to see enough tankers are sent to the sub-urban colonies in the town, irrespective of the demand from one or other political party persons.

He questioned the solution on how to fight the demand for water in Ongole after August 15 and in Markapur after 25 days as the water lasts up to then. He announced that a rig will be provided to each assembly constituency in the district to dig bore wells.

Audimulapu Suresh advised the officials to prepare uniform contingent plan to provide drinking water to the public. He said that 40 mandals in the district are announced as drought-hit by the government and asked the officials to work on finding sources to provide water to the public.

He questioned the higher officials in the RWS that how come works will be done at ground level when there are no JEs in 24 mandals and DEs in 2 subdivisions. He asked them to provide drinking water to all habitations in the western area by implementing a special monitoring system.

DRO V Venkata Subbaiah, Ongole, Kandukur, Markapur RDOs Penchala Kishore, Ramarao, Ramakrishna Reddy, RWS SE Sanjeeva Reddy, public health EE Rammohan, OMC Commissioner K Sakunthala, EE Sundara Ramireddy, groundwater DD Nagamalleswara Rao, other municipal, irrigation and RWS officials participated in the meeting.