Tail-end areas of the city, which suffer from a shortage of water, can soon hope to get adequate supplies. The Water Board has started inter-linking the main distribution pipeline of the Osmansagar, Himayats-agar, Manjira-Singur, Krishna and the proposed Godavari reservoirs.
The interlinking of what is called ‘ring-mains’ will imp-rove supplies in Malkajgiri, Sainikpuri, Secunderabad Cantt., Kapra, Alwal, Qutbu-llapur, Kukatpally, Rajende-rnagar and Serilingampally. Many areas on the periphery get supply once in five days or once in seven days.
The inter-linking is cruci-al as water from any source can be diverted to areas wi-th a shortage. For example, there were complaints of a foul smell from the water supplied from Osmansagar and Himayatsagar two ye-ars ago. “This was because water had touched very low levels in the reservoirs. A lot of vegetation had grown, and fish and prawns were also being reared. The Kris-hna water was diverted to the areas fed by the two res-ervoirs as there was inter-connectivity available to th-is system,” an official said.
The inter-linking of the ring-mains is all the more essential as the ensuing ph-ase-I of the Godavari project will bring an additional 172 million gallons of water per day to the city, and the Krishna phase-III will prov-ide 90mgd more water daily. The total daily supply to the city will then increase from the present 340mgd to a whopping 602mgd.