The Hindu : Tapping of water goes on unabated, day and night

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 09, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Tapping of water goes on unabated, day and night

By Suresh Krishnamoorthy

HYDERABAD May 8. A harsh summer at its peak and a majority of borewells in the area having dried up. A steeply falling groundwater table, thanks to indiscriminate commercial and illegal exploitation by unscrupulous operators. Day and night.

That is the situation in and around the APSRTC colony in Trimulgherry, adjacent to the Hashmathpet lake. The colony came up around 1982, when Alwal was only a gram panchayat. About 20 years later, after it became a grade II municipality, residents are regretting why they had come to live there.

For the first time in two decades, people living in RTC colony, Burhani colony and Lake Villa Extension, to the left of the road from Gunrock Enclave to Subhash Nagar, are directly affected and facing an acute scarcity of water. If people in these colonies are suffering directly, those in Durgavihar colony, IOB colony and Ravi colony -- on the right side of the road -- are affected indirectly.

``When we came we were promised that we would get water, roads and lighting. We have been paying taxes regularly. But promises remain promises,'' rue the residents. Their grouse in particular is the illegal exploitation of groundwater by some unscrupulous operator. The exploitation of groundwater goes on in a small extent of land about 50 metres to the left of Gunrock Enclave-Subhash Nagar road. One look is enough. There are about 11 six-inch borewells. The flow of water from each of the borewells is such that a 10,000-litre capacity tanker just takes about 15 minutes to get filled, the residents say. And the tankers come in at all hours of the day and night.

The tapping of water is a continuous process here, which led to the borewells in the surrounding areas going dry. Apart from the continuous running of tankers, residents suffer from pollution -- noise of revving engines and nauseating exhaust fumes. As if this was not enough, the borewell operator has been topping the 60-metre stretch of inside road, so much so the road is now on a higher level than the other inside roads in the colony. This means that in the rainy season water cannot run off the inside roads into the adjacent lake.

So, the residents are forced to put up with the slush during the rainy season. The residents have voiced their complaint to just about everybody - the Chief Minister, the Home Minister, the Ranga Reddy Collector, the Managing Director of the Metrowater Board, the Alwal Municipal Chairman and the Commissioner. But their complaints have gone in vain. No action has been taken on the unscrupulous operator who goes on exploiting groundwater for commercial purposes.

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