Hyderabad despite having surplus water is ironically parched due to sheer internal inefficiencies of government institutions. The priority should be to first fix the lacunae in the systems and institutions instead of pumping water from Godavari 270 km away at a huge cost, said BJP leader and president of Futuristic Cities Karuna Gopal.
Addressing a media conference here on Saturday, she said that the city, even before Godavari and Krishna Phase III had been initiated, had surplus water. According to Government of India (GoI), the benchmark for water supply for cities was 135 litres per capita per day (LPCD) but Hyderabad supplied 162 LPCD.
Citing the benchmarks set by GoI, she said Hyderabad was quite short on these. Coverage of pipelines was only 70% as against 100%, metering of water was only 20%. Transmission and distribution losses should be 20%, but it was 40% in the city and 60% in municipalities in metropolitan area. Ms. Karuna said that internal inefficiencies and bad governance were responsible for the sorry state of affairs and the TRS government should pay its attention first to fix the issues. The government should ensure that the mandated 300,000 rainwater harvesting pits be built and cooperate with Jal Shakti Ministry that was planning water conservation programmes.
