Hyderabad: Majority of districts in Telangana state had started experiencing drinking water crisis much before summer setting in.
Less than a month after 24x7 free power was launched on January 1, about 223 villages and 27 mandals passed unanimous resolutions requesting the government to restrict the scheme to nine hours or even less till summer ended.
“This is because, the government relies on borewells and agriculture wells for summer contingency plan to supply drinking water to affected villages and habitations and if agriculture motors run round- the-clock now, the availability of ground water in peak summer will be nil,” they added.
The government had set a March 31 deadline for contractors to complete Mission Bhagiratha. But, going by the current pace, the works were expected to be complete only by June-end.
The laying of main pipeline network had been completed 90 per cent, but intra-village pipeline network was lagging at just 60 per cent. Without this water would not reach villages and households. This left the government to rely solely on borewells and agriculture wells to ensure water.
Following protests in Karimanagar, Jagtial, Sircilla, Nalgonda and Sangareddy, officials had started imposing restrictions on free power. They were asking farmers not to use motors beyond four hours and threatening to disconnect power if they ran them round the clock because free power was available.
