Suburban areas in grip of water crisis

Kukatpally: The impact of water crisis is felt more in outlying areas, where residents have to entirely depend on private tanker operators for the supply of water. Ramchandrapuram, Patancheru, Serilingampally, Kukatpally, LB Nagar and Asif Nagar are the areas with most number of tanker requests.

With the depletion of underground water levels, the supply of water has become a major concern in the city, especially in the summer season. The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) operates water tankers. While it charges Rs 500 per tanker if booked online, private operators charge anywhere between Rs 800 to 1,000.

As of now, the HMWSSB operates 600 free tankers, and there are another 525 private tankers, which supply water in the city every day. Each area gets tankers once in two days. The Dial-a-Tanker requests are monitored on real time by the HMWSSB officials.

Tanker booking and pricing is performed in three categories:

1. Domestic category which gets water once in two days or maximum eight times in a month for Rs 500
2. Multi-storied domestic buildings (5 to 24 flats) which get two tankers in one day or maximum 30 times in a month for 500 rupees
3. Multi-storied domestic (25 to 200 flats) which gets water thrice in one day or maximum 60 times in a month for 500 rupees
4. Commercial and all other categories get water once in one day or maximum 30 times in a month for 850 rupees.