Crisis-hit Hyderabad banks on Godavari water

Hyderabad: The Water Board has decided to use emergency pumps for the second time to draw Godavari water. The Board will be installing 14 emergency pumps to bring drinking water to the city from the Sripada Yellampally reservoir. The water at Nagarjunanagar is depleting at an alarming pace. 

Water stands at 511.9 feet in the dam, and the Board will have to use emergency pumps if it falls below 510 feet, the minimum draw down level (MDDL). Tenders for the pumps were finalised in April, the Water Board is yet to complete installing them. According to highly placed sources, the Water Board has been supplying 132 million gallons a day from Godavari phase I to 40 lakh residents. Emergency pumps were used for the first time in 2016 after the drought of 2015. After two years, the state is facing a similar situation. 

The water level at the Yellampally barrage has been depleting at an alarming pace. If the Water Board does not instal emergency pumps within 15 days, the city will face a water shortage within a month. The other major source would be Singur/Manjira, where the water board is drawing 48 MGD. Sources said that even though the Water Board had been conducting emergency pumping operations since 2015, it has still been caught unprepared, with water levels just a few feet below the minimum draw down level of 510 feet. The Water Board says it acted immediately on the alert of the irrigation department. 

Officials claimed that maintenance work on 10 pumping stations in the Krishna river basin were in final stages and tenders have been invited for 10 emergency pumps in the Godavari river basin. “The Water Board will start emergency pumping station from Nagarjunasagar once the water levels reach 507 feet, in about two weeks. If the pumps are not installed in two weeks, about 30 per cent of the city’s population will face acute water crisis,” a senior water board official said. He said that even the 48 MGD from Singur/Manjira and 10 MGD from the twin reservoirs Osmansagar and Himayatsagar could be used.