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.