Hyderabad: For 10 years, thousands of residents in a section of the city have been waiting for 24x7 water supply from the Malkajgiri water supply scheme that was taken up under the World Bank-funded Municipal Development Project (MDP), and for which they have suffered dug-up roads and unsettled traffic for years. The residents have to continue to make adjustments and manage with drinking water supply once in two days, which sometimes dwindles to twice a week.
The reason: For a decade, the Metropolitan Water Board has not completed the construction of three reservoirs and laying 30 km of pipelines. The project cost Rs 338.55 crore, out of which works worth Rs 80 crore remain to be done. The Water Board’s performance has been so terrible that the World Bank representatives, who visited the city to inspect the MDP, withdrew from it citing the quality of execution.
The government had sanctioned the MDP with World Bank assistance of Rs 338.55 crore in 2009 and released GOs No. 288 and 1,222. According to the information gathered from the Water Board, it has completed the construction of two ground-level service reservoirs (GLSR) and five elevated level surface reservoirs (ELSR) or overhead water tanks. It still has to construct 50-lakh litre reservoirs in Gauthami-nagar — merging two reservoirs — and Defence Colony.
Despite getting the World Bank grants, the Water Board wrote to the government to sanction Rs 8 crore for the construction of reservoirs to supply drinking water to Malikar-junagar, Gauthaminagar and Defence Colony in 2017. Two years later, there is no sign of the money.
This apart, as part of the project, the Water Board should have fixed 40,000 water meters at a cost of Rs 80 crore to regulate leakages. This was never done.
The Water Board announced last year that the project had been executed successfully.
Just weeks later, a team from the World Bank inspected the execution of the project.
Shocked by the quality of execution of work and utilisation of grants, the World Bank withdrew from the project. Due to the apathy of the Water Board, several pockets in Moula Ali, Defence Colony, Mallikarjunagar and Gauthamnagar have been facing acute water crisis, despite claims of uninterrupted 24/7 water supply.
“We had written to the government to grant Rs 88 crore to construct the pending reservoirs, install 40,000 water meters and lay the 30-km drinking water network immediately after the World Bank withdrew from the project,” a Water Board official said. “There has been no response from the government.”
The official claimed that the Water Board had laid 370 km of pipelines and constructed six reservoirs and pump houses. He said residents in Moula Ali would continue to experience water shortage till the pipeline was built.
