It’s a case of water haves and the have nots in Hyderabad. The Godavari water being piped to the city has transformed the quality and the quantity of water reaching the households here. But for many apartment complexes and individual houses on the fringes of the town, the water crisis is a year-round affair. “When we moved into this apartment in 2011, we used to get bore-well water as well as piped water that was sufficient for 90 apartments in this building. Now we have to get six tankers per day to meet the needs of the residents. The piped water supply has declined to one-fourth of what we used to get earlier. The result is that we have to pay ₹70,000 per month for the water supply,” says Israel James, who lives in an apartment block at Nalanda Nagar in Hyderguda. While the residents pay ₹11,085 for 810 kilolitres of water, they get between 146 KL and 231 KL.
Only yards away are individual houses near Eshwar Theatre, where the road is dotted with puddles of water as residents water their plants, wash the forecourt, and their vehicles, letting the water run onto the road. “Nobody wants to turn off the water tap. We have asked the residents not to release water onto the road, but they don’t listen to us,” says a water board employee who controls the water valve in the area.
The situation in the core areas of the city like Ameerpet, Srinivasa Colony and S.R. Nagar is quite different. “All the bore-wells in our area dry up in February. We get water on alternate days, but that is insufficient to meet our needs, so everyone gets tankers to supplement the supply. While the water supply doesn’t decline, there has been a massive rise in demand for water due to change in land use. Houses meant for small families have been turned into hostels. This commercial use in the residential area becomes a problem for us,” says Rama Rao, who lives in a 20-year-old apartment at Srinivasa Colony.
The impact of water crisis is felt more in outlying areas where residents have to entirely depend on private tanker operators for supply. While the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) charges ₹500 per tanker if booked online, private operators charge anywhere between ₹800 and ₹1,000. “Our monthly maintenance bill has gone up to ₹2,000 per family. We are dependent on tankers that charge ₹800 and we get four tankers per day for 72 houses. We have been promised municipal water for the past many years, but nothing is progressing on the ground,” says Shiva Gande, a resident of Beeramguda in the western part of the city.
As summer intensifies in the city, the pressure on water supply would only increase.
