Ongole: Parched western parts of Prakasam district get water once in a week

Ongole : With soaring temperature and heat wave conditions, the villagers of western part of Prakasam district, including Markapuram, Yerragondapalem, Darsi, Giddalur and Kanigiri started witnessing water scarcity and gearing up to store more quantity of water for daily needs as the government supplies water once a week or twice in 10 days.

The people in these water-starved villages are now busy cleaning their plastic water drums to store water fearing that the authorities may increase the gap between the supplies due to depleting water sources.

T Sivamma of Viswanadhapuram in Podili said that by the end of April every year, the government supplies water to their area only once in a week and they need to fill as much as they can. She lined up four huge water drums in front of her house to make sure that water is sufficient for her six-member family. As the heat wave has already begun in the area registering daily temperatures of above 40 degrees Celsius, and the existing water sources getting depleted, the number of villages that require water through the tankers is increasing. Some of the drinking water supply schemes, where the government has dug bore wells and constructed tanks, have dried up or in need of repairs for the motors.

Rural water supply and sanitation superintending engineer Sk Mardan Ali explained that due to the prevailing drought conditions, drinkiang water scarcity in new habitations also arose. He said that though they were digging bore wells up to 1,000 feet depth, they are drying up in a few weeks.

He said that as of now, they are supplying 126 habitations in the Darsi, Markapur and Yerragondapalem Assembly constituencies and already making arrangements to increase the number of vulnerable habitations to 320 plus soon, as per the contingency plan.