Hyderabad: No summer action plan to address drinking water issues in villages

• Instead of preparing the action plan and allocating funds for it, the officials are advising the district level officers to speed up the Mission Bhagiratha works

• The sarpanches are skeptical about the completion of the MB works as several works have been left unattended for months together

• Under the summer action plan the district RWS officials would be allowed to take up digging new bore wells, repair of the existing ones, hiring of the agriculture bore wells, pressing the services of tankers, and repair of hands pumps

Hyderabad: Though the summer is round the corner, the officials of Rural Water Supply are yet to come up with a summer action plan to address the shortage of drinking water in the Gram Panchayats.

Instead of preparing the action plan and allocating funds for it, the officials of RWS are advising the district level officers to speed up the Mission Bhagiratha works.

The sarpanches of the Gram Panchayats are skeptical about the completion of the MB works as several works have been left unattended for months together. They have been alleging that the MB works are yet to be completed and may take few more months.

Usually the RWS officials prepare a summer action plan every year by February. They sanction funds to the activities to be taken up to address the drinking water issues. Under the summer action plan the district RWS officials would be allowed to take up digging new bore wells, repair of the existing ones, hiring of the agriculture bore wells, pressing the services of tankers, and repair of hands pumps.

However, according to sources, this action plan has not been initiated so far. The RWS officials have been advising the district officials to complete the MB works so that there would be no problem for supply of drinking water.

On the other hand, the sarpanches have made it clear to the RWS officials that the MB works are not completed and there is a need to depend on the old water supply schemes, and also to take up summer action plan.

They said that already the groundwater levels have gone down and there is a danger of severe shortage of drinking water in the summer. The officials also accept that the MB works have not completed and most of the villages are not receiving the water through the project.

According to the Ground Water Department, the district wise average water level varies from 4.39 meters below ground level (mbgl) in Wanaparthy district to 18.77 mbgl in Sangareddy district with State average of 8.88 mbgl. Moderately deep (15-20 m bgl) and very deep water levels ( less than 20 m bgl) occupy 8 per cent and 4 per cent of State area respectively. And these are mostly covering northern and eastern and western part of Sangareddy, south western part of Medak, northern part of Vikarabad, western and southern part of Siddipet, southern part of Yadadri, western and eastern part of Rangareddy, north-western part of Nagarkurnool , south-eastern part of Bhadradri and north-western part of Nalgonda district.

Out of 589 mandals, 68 mandals are showing deep water levels below 20 mbgl and out of these 68 mandals, 23 mandals are showing further decline in water levels mostly in Medak, Sangareddy, Nalgonda, Bhadradri, Bhupalpally and Rangareddy districts in comparison to January-2019 water levels. The maximum decline of 10.39 m is observed at Patancheru mandal of Sangareddy district.