There is acute water shortage and the cottages will not be given for rent to the pilgrims , screams a poster at the historic Sri Raja Rajeswara Swamy Devasthanam at Vemulawada in Rajanna-Sircilla district.
Thousands of pilgrims, who visit the temple every day, are forced to leave the shrine after the darshan of the presiding deities without a stay for a few days, as is the practice during vacation, as there is acute drinking water shortage in the temple town. Let alone pilgrims, even the local residents are facing water shortage following depleting groundwater table.
The ambitious Sri Raja Rajeswara Swamy drinking water supply scheme for providing water from the Lower Manair Dam (LMD) located in Karimnagar to Vemulawada shrine remains a distant dream despite the project being taken up in 2006 at a cost of ₹9.5 crore.
Owing to delay in the execution of the project, the cost had escalated to ₹13 crore, but it still remains incomplete following leakages and repairs. Initially, the Rural Water Supply (RWS) authorities had supplied water to the temple town, but the arrangement was for a short duration as there were several leakages in the pipeline. Even the water supplied from the LMD was not filtered through the filter-bed. The temple authorities stepped in and provided water to the pilgrims by adding chlorine to water in the overhead tanks.
For the residents of the temple town, only 10 bore-wells have been providing drinking water against the existing 131 bore-wells forcing the Nagara Panchayat authorities to purchase water from the neighbouring villages.
So far, the temple authorities have not taken any measures to purchase water putting the pilgrims to inconvenience.
The pilgrims criticise the temple authorities for not arranging for water, but instead displaying the posters saying no accommodation would be provided owing to water shortage.
On the other hand, private hotels have been providing water for the pilgrims staying at their hotels. “When the temple was earning in crores through hundi collection made by the devotees, why can’t it purchase water to help the visiting pilgrims?” they question.
The temple sources, in their defence, said that they had not prepared an action plan to mitigate water shortage with a hope that water supplied to the temple town from the LMD reservoir would be sufficient. “But the leakages in the pipeline are causing problems now,” they added.
