City’s ground water level dips to all-time low :- 5.6.12-TOI

Even Water Tankers Go Dry At Many Places

Hyderabad: The city’s water shortage is now so intense that even private tankers, Hyderabad’s water lifeline, have run dry. Over the last three to four days, the water board’s ‘Dial-a-tanker’ has put consumers “on hold” endlessly even as private tanker operators have switched off their phones unable to meet Hyderabad’s water demand. The crisis is rooted in the ground water level dropping to an all-time low of 10 metres and the two-hour power cuts ensuring that the tanker refilling process is severely hit.
    The few tankers still available are over-booked with as many as 500-800 consumers on their ‘waiting-list’. Tanker owners who promised deliveries in just about a few hours to one day until sometime ago are now pressing for at least a sevenday notice. Most have switched off their phones, unable to meet the demand. “The demand has gone up by more than 50%. The water board operates 110 free tankers and 450 paid tankers but are not able to meet the requirement. The depleting ground-water level has only made matters worse,” said Md Imran Khan, secretary, state motors transport operators association. The acute shortage has forced these tankers to cut down on their daily trips from 10 to just about five.
    In fact, several localities in the city have not received any water supply in the last few days, either from the municipality or water tankers. Right from the core areas of Begumpet, Ameerpet and Somajiguda to the ‘high-tech’ colonies of Madhapur and Kondapur or even the narrow bylanes of Old City or even the once water-surplus areas such as Sainikpuri, the situation is much the same.
    Adding to the tanker shortage are the scheduled power cuts that have come back to haunt the city. Every two hours of load-shedding, Khan said, translated into a loss of 80 tankers. “Each of the 60 filling stations can fill about 40 tankers per hour. The lesser the number of tankers filled, the thinner is the supply,” he added. “Not just the water board-run tankers, even the private ones have heavy bookings. When we approached a private tanker, we were told that the waiting period would be a week. Their register had about 150 consumers listed before us,” said Rajesh Rao.
    In the plush pockets of Banjara and Jubilee Hills, the water situation is fast worsening. Narrating his tale, Manoj Krishna, a resident of Banjara Hills, said that his apartment had no water since last week. Even the area’s private tanker dealers failed to show up, he added, due to an acute scarcity.
    In fact, when TOI attempted to call some private tankers, they either did not answer the phone or declared they were ‘out of supply’ immediately after taking the call. “All borewells have dried up across the city. Where is the water for us to supply,” asked Sathya Reddy, one such tanker supplier. His fleet of tankers, he said, was gathering dust for a few weeks now.
    Hyderabad’s already receded water-table has dropped below the 10-metre mark, worst ever in the last decade, most of its borewells have run dry and tanker supplies across residential pockets have disappeared over the last few days leaving denizens battling for every drop of water. The crisis: the groundwater is insufficient to fill the many tankers that are Hyderabad’s lifeline even as taps have run dry.
    The state’s ground-water officials say that the situation has worsened significantly over the last few days. “The water table was at 9.63-metre mark until recently. Now it has further dropped by about 0.5-1 metre, making 2011-12 just slightly better than the severe drought years of 2003 to 2005,” said N Srinivas, assistant director, ground water department.
    Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) officials, however, claim that the department is armed with the solution to address it. They admit that the demand in certain pockets has shot over the last one week but that the shortage is not across the city. “Only areas such as Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills and Kukatpally are facing a problem. We have reviewed the situation on Monday and have decided to increase the (water supply) timings in these areas to well past midnight. Tankers will make more trips to address the demand,” said Adhar Sinha, managing director of the board.
    Ironically, the MD’s claim notwithstanding, water board’s ‘Diala-tanker’ service has for the last few days kept denizens on hold for hours together with most callers being unable to reach the operator to book their tanker. While water board officials have been directing all to use the ‘155313’ number as the panacea to their water woes, but the line is as good as defunct, say denizens.