With water level falling in the Lower Manair Dam (LMD) reservoir on the outskirts of Karimnagar — the only water source for the town — citizens are staring at a crisis.
Hitting dead storage
With the town sizzling at 46 degrees Celsius leading to fast evaporation, the LMD reservoir has only 3.919 tmc of water at present against its storage capacity of 24 tmc. With dead storage of the project being 2.2 tmc, a severe shortage threat is imminent.
So much so, municipal authorities were unable to supply adequate water since the onset of summer. Residents in various localities of the town are already facing acute shortage due to erratic and low pressure. As the ground water table had depleted, and with borewells drying up, residents were forced to rely solely on municipal water supply.
Reduced supply
Against the demand of 28 million litres per day (MLD), the municipal authorities were supplying only 20 MLD, that too at reduced timings from 90 minutes to 45 minutes, and to 30 minutes. Authorities are making arrangements for fixing booster pumps to lift water from the reservoir to the filter bed.
Further, authorities fear that there will be faster evaporation due to the prevailing heat wave conditions.
On May 30, the water level was 883.60 feet and 3.973 tmc, on May 31, it had come down to 883.55 feet and 3.960 tmc. Similarly, on June 1, the water table was at 883.50 and 3.946 tmc, on June 2, it was 883.45 feet and 3.933 tmc, and on June 3 it was 883.40 feet and 3.919 tmc.
Mayor confident
With the present evaporation rate, officials fear the water level at the reservoir would reach dead storage of 2.2 tmc soon. However, Mayor S. Ravinder Singh said they would provide water to the people of Karimnagar town at least for another one month with the prevailing water table at the reservoir.
On the other hand, boating facilities at the reservoir were cancelled following the falling water level. All the speed boats were kept on the shore.
