Since infrastructure inevitably lags behind commercial development, there is a severe water problem in about 800 new colonies located at various places in 12 surrounding municipalities that are now part of Greater Hyderabad. A majority of these colonies are not even connected to a drinking water distribution system and thousands of families have to buy drinking water.
It will cost an estimated `4,000 crore to lay underground water pipelines, according to a master plan prepared by a private consultancy for the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board. The Water Board is seeking financial support from Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission to execute the project. In the meanwhile, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has offered to give water connections to colonies if they share 30 per cent of the cost of the project for each colony. The remaining 70 per cent will be borne by the GHMC.
There were high hopes in these colonies when GHMC had proposed to take a loan of `600 crore by mortgaging its properties and planned to spend that amount on an underground water and drainage network for the 800 colonies. The plan was proposed by the then GHMC Commissioner Sameer Sharma as part of the Total Infrastructure Provision (TIP) project. But as soon as Mr Sharma was transferred, the `600 crore plan was revised and residents say that they have now been told that the money will be spent on construction of flyovers, parks, bridges, and roads.
Apart from these 800 new colonies there are several other colonies in the municipal circles of Malkajgiri, Kapra, Uppal, Qutbullapur and Uppal that get water supply just once a week or once in five days.