Still no potable water for Karimnagar Municipal Corporation villages

Karimnagar: Karimnagar Municipal Corporation (KMC) has remained a Smart City just for the namesake as it failed to ensure supply of drinking water and lags behind in providing facilities to the merged villages.

The corporation expanded its scope by including eight Gram Panchayats in its suburbs. However, the lack of coordination between the government systems has become a bane for the people of the suburban colonies.

Mission Bhagiratha officials have said that the water supply system in the merged villages has been handed over to the corporation, and the corporation officials are trying to avoid this problem by saying that they do not have a proper drinking water supply system in the respective villages.

Both the authorities are in an unresponsive state to answer the question, who is running the system fully? As the pipelines and overhead tanks that are built not enough for the population, the people of the merged villages are forced to drink water mixed with bleaching powder.

Suburban panchayats such as Padmanagar, Raykurthi, Sitarampur, Arepalli, Thigala Guttapalli, Vallamphad, Alugunur and Sadasivapalli have been facing problems of drinking water supply. In Sitarampur, there has been some improvement, however, at Thigalaguttapalli and Vallampahad the water is being supplied from agricultural wells in the suburbs. The water is not chlorinated, and bleaching powder is used to treat the water that is being supplied once in two or three days.

This water is dirty and full of garbage. Moreover, these pipelines are also full of leakages in many places. Dirty water is being supplied to the people of these divisions from the Thigalagutlapalli agriculture well and from a well located at the Irukulla stream near Vallamphad.

Due to this the, people of these localities are not getting drinking water supply at their home. These residents are forced to spend money and buy drinking water. People are angry as even after the merger of the villages in the corporation, they do not have drinking water facility.

Earlier these eight gram panchayats used to get water supply through Mission Bhagiratha. While the water for the city is supplied from the LMD water grid, the water for suburbs is supplied from the Elagandal water grid. The water from Elagandal water grid is being supplied to Padmanagar, Raykurthi, Sitarampur, Arepally, Thigalaguttapally, Vallampahad, Sadashivapally and Alugunur.

The drinking water pipeline in these villages from Elagandal water grid is in good condition. The root cause of the problem is that the water tanks built here were constructed without keeping in mind the future needs of the people in the area. Hence, all overhead tanks are built with a capacity of one lakh litres.

Moreover, only three-inch capacity pipelines have been installed for pumping water into this tank and to release water. It takes more than 16 hours to fill these tanks. Due to this, water supply in these areas has become a challenge for the Corporation. According to the current population demand, there should be tanks with a capacity of at least 10 lakh litres. This has made water supply a challenge with tanks having a capacity of less than one lakh litres.

A social activist Urumalla Viswam told The Hans India that everyone was happy that the basic right of the people to drinking water will improve their lives if the villages are merged. But the KMC is failing to provide minimum required drinking water to the citizens. In this regard, Mission Bhagiratha and the Corporation should take the initiative. Drinking water is a basic right for the people who pay taxes, he said

In the case of merged villages, Mission Bhagiratha did not complete the pipeline system in the respective villages. It is true that there are problems in the supply of drinking water. New proposals are being made to overcome this problem. With that, drinking water problem is likely to be solved to a large extent, said SE, MCK Nagamalleswar Rao.