Hyderabad goes bone dry while Chennai submerges

Residents in Hyderabad watching the coverage of the Chennai floods on their television sets might pray for the safety of the victims but cannot help wishing that the deluge was somehow channeled to the reservoirs supplying water to their city.

Residents in Hyderabad watching the coverage of the Chennai floods on their television sets might pray for the safety of the victims but cannot help wishing that the deluge was somehow channelled to the reservoirs supplying water to their city.

Hyderabad, with a population of about 8 million, has been facing an acute shortage of water for over a week now as Singur and Manjeera reservoirs, which are the major sources of drinking water, have dried up. (HT File Photo)

Hyderabad, with a population of about 8 million, has been facing an acute shortage of water for over a week now as Singur and Manjeera reservoirs, which are the major sources of drinking water, have dried up.

Against its storage capacity of 29.9 TMC, Singur reservoir had just 0.9 TMC of water on Friday.

Water in Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar reservoirs on the outskirts has also dried up.

“Enough of rains in Chennai ... Send some to Hyderabad … Need water here …,” wrote Hyderabad resident Addepalli Lavanya on her Facebook wall.

Hyderabad requires 600 million gallons of water per day (MGD) for adequate use but the regular supply has been only up to 340 MGD. The supply has been cut by 160 MGD after the reservoirs dried up.

Water supply board officials say the situation will ease soon with the supply of 56 MGD of Godavari water under a new project.