Drinking water becomes too precious for Kurnool residents

Kurnool: The first capital city of united Andhra Pradesh, Kurnool, is reeling under severe drinking water shortage, the worst situation in two decades. Almost all residential colonies in the city are facing water scarcity though the Kurnool Municipal Corporation (KMC) is making efforts to ensure hour-long water supply at least twice in a week to some areas. Water is supplied to about 150 colonies in city once in a week and the rest of colonies are receiving once in 10 days.

According to an official source, at least 80 cusecs of water has to be drawn from Thungabhadra River on round the clock basis to cater to the drinking water needs of 6.5 lakh population of the city. But Tungabhadra River was seen totally dry up with water pools formed here and there.

The main source of water supply to Tungabhadra River is Sunkesula Barrage which has also gone down to dead storage. There were no rains on the upper stream with which the Barrage is not receiving any inflow.

It has just only 0.121 TMC out of 1.290 TMC of water storage capacity.More than 95 per cent of the families depend on the water supplied by Kurnool Municipal Corporation. The KMC officials draw water from Gajula Dinne Project (GDP) located at Gonegandla village, at a distance of 100 km from Kurnool city.

Water from Gajula Dinne Project used to pump to Summer Storage (SS) Tank in Kurnool city. Unfortunately, the GDP wore a deserted look due to water reaching to dead storage. The GDP has only 0.100 TMC of water out of total storage capacity 4.500 TMC.

The KMC officials have taken special permission from the District Collector to draw few of cusecs of water from the Sunkesula Barrage to cater the drinking water needs of Kurnool residents. K Parvathi Devi, residents of Brundavan Nagar, said they face hardships to meet the daily requirements as water being supplied once in a week and that too for one hour.

We are forced to purchase water from private water tankers, a pot is sold for Rs.10. The officials of Municipal Corporation are least concerned to address the water woes, she says. According to an official source, at least 70 million litres per day is required to cater the drinking water needs of the residents of city.

But, water level in Sunkesula reservoir has gone down. The officials are drawing nearly 30 cusecs water from Gajula Dinne project daily to store it in summer storage tank. The water is released to the city residents in phases after purifying it. The district head quarter Kurnool city has nearly 6.5 lakh population and 1.30 lakh families with 51 wards.

-Narendra Kumar