Water crisis looms over Vikarabad

Vikarabad: Though it became a municipality a decade ago, the district headquarters is facing tough time to provide amenities to people due to dearth of funds. As municipality officials have failed to clear the pending bills, HMWS&SB officials cut the Manjira water supply to the town. 

A total of 28 wards are in Vikarabadmunicipality. As many 13,000 houses and 65,000 people are residing in the town. A total of 11,000 tap connections are identified in the city. According to official estimates, the officials should supply 135 liters of water per head.
 
A total of 6.5 million liter per day (MLD) is required to be supplied to the city.  It is learned that as many as 4 MLD of water is available from all sources and officials are hoping that Mission Bhagiratha water would be end water woes of the town. 
 
Supply of drinking water to the city is turning a big headache for the officials as Shivareddypet tank has dried up due to deficit rainfall.  Add to this, the HMWSSB officials stopped supply of Manjira water after the municipality failed to pay old dues. 

District Collector held a review meeting with MLA, municipal officials, Mission Bhagiratha officials and others recently. They discussed measures to overcome the situation. It is learned that the municipality has no funds to clear the dues.

Municipal Commissioner Satyanarayana said they are making all arrangements to supply drinking water keeping in view of coming summer season. The Commissioner said Shivareddypet tank has dried up. 

He said supply of Manjira water has stopped recently. Satyanarayana said pipeline works are going on. He said they will supply Bhagiratha water and fixation of free tap soon. Satyanarayana asked the people to avail the facility.

State government is planning to fix water meters to every house in near future. It is learned that the government is planning to provide water for free for some time and it will collect bills from people using water for commercial purpose.

It will enable the government to collect tax apart from controlling water wastage.