Source : The Hindu Date : 07.07.2009
Acute water crisis stares at Karimnagar
K.M. Dayashankar
Water level in LMD reservoir reaches 879.80 feet
Colonies on town outskirts are getting water once in four days
–Photo: K. M. Dayashankar 
Alarming fall: The water level has depleted sharply in LMD reservoir in Karimnagar town causing concern to the municipal authorities.
KARIMNAGAR: The Karimnagar Municipal Corporation is likely to face drinking water problem with the depletion of water table in Lower Manair Dam (LMD) reservoir with the irrigation authorities releasing water from the reservoir to the neighbouring Warangal district through Kakatiya Canal for the past two days.
In order to meet the drinking water requirements of Warangal town, Minister for Major Irrigation Ponnala Laxmaiah instructed the authorities to release water from the SRSP reservoir and later from the LMD balancing reservoir to avoid water woes in Karimnagar town.
On the contrary, the irrigation authorities without releasing water from the SRSP to LMD, started releasing about 1,000 cusecs of water to Warangal from LMD reservoir.
Already, the water level in LMD reservoir reached 879.80 feet on Monday with storage capacity of 3 tmc. If the water level reaches 877 feet, the reservoir reaches dead storage with a capacity of only 2 tmc, thus causing inconvenience for the municipal authorities to lift water from the dead storage level to the filter beds.
Under this scenario, supplying water for domestic consumption becomes very difficult, say municipal authorities said.
TRS plea
TRS corporator S. Ravinder Singh said that people of Karimnagar town would suffer from acute drinking water shortage in spite of availability of reservoir as water would be supplied to Warangal.
He demanded the irrigation authorities to release water to the LMD reservoir from SRSP to meet the requirements of the town.
He also said that the municipal authorities would be forced to deploy on-line boosters to lift water from dead storage level, which would again be an extra burden on the corporation.
Meanwhile, Mayor D. Shankar said there would not be any problem as the irrigation authorities are closely monitoring the situation. He assured that the people of Karimnagar town would not have any water woes.
Meanwhile, the municipal officials claim that there is no shortage of water supply in the town.
However, several colonies on the outskirts are getting water once in four days and in slums, water is being supplied through tankers. Presently, the municipality is supplying 28 million litres per day in the town.
