Ranga Reddy and Medak districts fight as water levels dip in Telangana

Hyderabad: With groundwater levels dipping, water wars have started between Ranga Reddy and Medak districts.

Nizampet, a gram panchayat under Quthbullapur mandal in Ranga Reddy district, started attracting people around eight-10 years ago for the cheap houses it had on offer and now has around 200 apartments many of which occupied by IT employees. However, even though the number of residents rose exponentially in Nizampet in the past few years, getting water connections has proven a distant dream for residents, forcing them to depend entirely on water provided by illegal water tanker units which extract groundwater, mostly from Patancheru in Medak district.

As groundwater levels have taken a serious dip in Medak, residents from the district have been pressurising the district authorities to crackdown on illegal water tanker units.

In the past few days, due to seizure of illegally sunk borewells in Patancheru by district officials, water tanker operators have halted operations, affecting Nizampet residents. The residents, in turn, conducted a rasta roko on Saturday, demanding a resolution of their water woes.

The protest by residents exposed the extent of the business of illegal water tanker units in this region. It also exposed the ignorance of government departments in ensuring basic amenities to citizens. As Nizampet is a gram panchayat, the Rural Water Supply (RWS) department should establish water connections. However, due to the large size of Nizampet “village” RWS did not take up the work