Scenes commonly associated with summer are being played out in several colonies of the city, though it is supposed to be winter. With no water trickling from taps, harried citizens in many areas of the city are engaged in the distressing exercise of buying and fetching water not only for drinking and cooking purposes but also to bathe, wash and clean.
For almost a week, residents of Beeramguda near Ramachandrpuram have been left with dry taps. Tankers, which are already in high demand, are booked to get borewell water for regular use, but drinking water has become a major issue. At a water plant near local mandal office, long queues are witnessed the entire day, right from early hours.
“For Rs.5, we get a filled 20-litre can, but to get even that, we have to wait for an hour and at times, more,” laments Siddaiah, who resides in an apartment near Beeramguda Kaman. Long queues mean arguments, jostling and occasional fisticuffs, he says.
Satish Kumar, a Central Government employee, last week shifted to an apartment near Miyapur, but even as his family was settling down, notices were being pasted in the lift and common areas of the apartment, announcing curtailed water supply. “We were to perform ‘vratam’ and there was no water. I was forced to rush and buy water cans,” he bemoans.
At Shaheen Nagar, locals laugh derisively at the aspiration of uninterrupted water supply in the city. “Here at localities such as Shaheen Nagar, Bandlaguda and parts of Kothapet, we are not getting a drop of potable water. Every day we have to buy from the water treatment plant,” says Syed Khaja Mohiuddin.
In other parts such as Dabeerpura and Komatwadi in the old city too, the problem has been recurrent. “The small well at my home dried up. Unable to manage the water issues, I shifted to Karmanghat,” says Ram Mohan, an engineer with a consultancy firm.
But then, there are some fortunate residential clusters too which continue to get a proper water supply. “I hear about the water travails in other colonies but we are sufficiently provided,” says Mohan, a watchman at an apartment at Shamshiguda.
