Anantapur residents seek clean drinking water

Anantapur: People's organisations in the city including Praja Science Vedika (PSV) and Residents Welfare Association (RWA) in a press statement demanded the municipal corporation and the state government to take steps to improve clean drinking water supply by properly maintaining water pipelines and cleaning of overhead tanks.

In a statement, PSV president M Suresh Babu and RWA general secretary V Sreenath observed that although the quality of water at the treatment plants was good, the water that travels through the water pipelines suffers from damages and drainage water seeps into drinking water pipelines polluting the drinking water at the consumer end besides the overhead tanks are also poorly maintained.

A strict sanitation drive should be ordered by the government to improve water quality and hygiene, they said.

Drinking water to Anantapur town is drawn from High level Canal. HLC canal starts from Tungabhadra river in Bellary district and enters Anantapur district. After passing into Anantapur district through open canal the water is filtered at Muddalapuram filter bed. The water is pumped to two distribution centers in Anantapur through pipeline from Muddalapuram. Only 30 per cent of the lower income group consumes water distributed by AMC. The middle and higher class majorly depend on RO water cans. Most of the borewells were contaminated as several towns in district do not have underground drainage system, they pointed out. The untreated sewage was dumped directly into water bodies, polluting three-fourth of surface water resources, they said.

The deterioration in quality of water is because most of the pipeline networks are poorly maintained. In the absence of accountability of civic agencies, capacity building and all-encompassing systemic improvements, it would be unrealistic to expect acceptable and uniform water quality in any city, they stated.