Hyderabad: High
winds and heavy rain in the Singur dam area overnight threw the
drinking water supply out of gear in the city on Wednesday, as the main
33 KV electricity line snapped. Over two lakh connections were affected
with either no water supply at all or very little water at low pressure.

The
Water Board depends mainly on the 33 KV line coming from Sadashivpet,
to pump water from the Singur dam to the city. There was no power supply
from 6 pm to 11 pm on Tuesday and pumping of water from Singur
Phase-III and Phase-IV stopped. Around 75 MGD of water is supplied from
Phase-III and IV. Though an alternative 11 KV line was given after 11
pm, it couldn’t take too much load and pumping was thus below normal.

For
some citizens, the dry taps was a double whammy. “Wednesday is a
scheduled supply date. If we miss the supply today, we will get it only
on Friday. That makes it four days in a row (without water). No one can
store water that is sufficient for four days.

The
Water Board should inform citizens about water supply schedule and
breakdown in supply through SMSes. We get monthly water bill updates in
our cellphone numbers. Then why don’t they inform us about the water
supply interruptions too through SMSes?” asked K. Trideep Nath, a
resident of Sanjeev Reddy Nagar.

MIM MLA Afsar Khan was
flooded with calls from residents in Karwan and surroundings. He called
up the Water Board officials and expressed ire over the power breakdown
on the day water is supplied in the areas that come under his Assembly
segment.

Water Board chief
general manager Sundar Ram Reddy said there was a shortage of only 20
MGD of the total 75 MGD of water, as water was pumped through the 11 KV
line too.

However, a large number of areas did not get water on Wednesday morning. Normal water supply was restored only in the evening.