The acute drinking water crisis that gripped Ongole has blown over as the two summer storage tanks in the city started receiving Krishna water from the Nagarjunasagar reservoir to pull on for the next four months.
Meanwhile, surplusing of the Srisailam reservoir though belatedly raised hopes among the ryots in the drought-prone Prakasam district of growing at least during rabi irrigated dry crops if not paddy.
The officials of the Ongole Municipal Corporation who were forced to supply drinking water only once a week hitherto with both summer storage tanks reaching dead storage levels, heaved a sigh of relief as the city received about 100 cusecs of water from the Ramatheertham balancing reservoir, the main storage point for distribution of drinking water to towns and villages in the district.
With this the storage in Summer Storage tank-I went up to 448.22 million litres on Sunday as against the full capacity of 1950 million litres and in the Summer Storage Tank-II to 845.96 as against the full capacity of 3850 million litre. “Going by the present inflows the drinking water tanks in the city will get filled up in the next 15 days,” Municipal Engineer D. Sundaraman Reddy said. “As and when both tanks get filled up, we can take care of the drinking water needs of the city for the next four months without any worry,” he added.
45 tmcft sought
The district administration has sought release of 4 tmcft of Krishna water to fill the drinking water storage tanks in the city as also 184 notified and 107 non-notified drinking water tanks to cater to the needs of two lakh people in the district.
As the storage in Srisailam mounted to 203 tmcft on Sunday as against the maximum capacity of 215.81 tmcft, farmers in Prakasam district demanded release of 45 tmcft of water to grow crops in 4.25 lakh acres coming under the Nagarjunasagar reservoir project (NSP) command area.
The farmers in the district, which forms the tail-end of the NSP ayacut, were forced to forgo paddy cultivation in the last three years. They should be provided Krishna water to raise crops at least during rabi, said Prakasam District Development Forum president and farmer leader Ch. Ranga Rao.