Urban News

The Deccan Chronicle  27.06.2010

Aug. 26: After a gap of 10 years, water levels in Osmansagar have reached 1,782 feet, just eight feet short of its Full Tank Level (FTL) of 1,790 feet. The reservoir, popularly known as Gandipet, is continuing to receive huge inflows following heavy rains. It was in the year 2000 that the gates of Osmansagar were opened to release the surplus water after the city and its outskirts were flooded with heavy rain that left a trail of destruction.

The weather forecast is for more rains in the next few days and there is possibility that the gates of Osmansagar will be opened if the water level reaches its FTL, the Water Board officials said. It may be mentioned that Osmansagar had almost dried up, with water levels plummeting to dead storage just three months back. The Water Board had stopped drawing water from it as the quality at dead storage level was not fit for human consumption. They resumed operations to draw water from Osmansagar only a week ago following an improvement in water levels and quality. Heavy rains in its catchment area resulted in Osmansagar receiving more than 1 TMC feet of water this season thus far.

With other reservoirs like Himayatsagar, Singur and Manjira too receiving heavy inflows, the Water Board MD, Mr Jagadeeshwar, did not rule out the possibility of resuming daily water supply to the core city.

Over 20 TMC feet of water has flowed into the four reservoirs of Osmansagar, Himayatsagar, Singur and Manjira this rainy season. In addition to this, 9 TMC feet has been allocated to the city from Nagarjunasagar for Krishna Phase-I and Phase-II. Greater Hyderabad requires 18 TMC to 20 TMC feet of water per annum to supply 332 million gallons of water to the city every day.

In Himayatsagar, rains have brought 1 TMC feet of water into the reservoir. However, major inflows this season have been into the Singur. Before the rainy season, the water in Singur was less than 5 TMC feet but as of Thursday it stood at 26.568 TMC feet; its FTL is 30 TMC feet. Last year, the water level stood at 9.350 TMC feet on the same date.