In Prakasam, people desert villages for a drop of water

ONGOLE: With no sign of rain, situation has worsened in the western parts of drought-hit Prakasam district. Thousands of families are deserting the villages.
Hundreds of deep borewells have gone completely dry leaving no water to be tapped. According to unofficial reports, at least 24 villages in Yerragondapalem, Kanigiri, Giddalur and Markapuram constituencies have been deserted. This is the fourth consecutive year that Prakasam district is witnessing a severe drought.

The rural water supply department (RWS), transporting water to the crisis-hit villages, has been struggling to meet the ever-increasing demand for water. Prakasam district singularly is taking up nearly 10,000 trips of water tanks each day of the 22,000 trips being supplied by the water supply department for the entire state.
Sources said that RWS officials supplied over 7,500 trips per day to the area in April and upped the scale of supplies to 9,400 by May. They thought that the situation might ease down by June. However, it was not to be. The attempts of the RWS to revive the borewells have also gone in vain as water could not be tapped even at the depth of 1,000ft.
Sources in the RWS say that they would not be able to continue the supply by tankers for long.
“In fact, it has become very difficult to supply 1,000 trips per day to each assembly constituency,” said a senior RWS official.
“Leaving the village is the only way to survive now,” said Pedda Venkateswarlu of Karumanupalle village of Tarlubadu mandal. Even villages located on the banks of Nagarjunasagar branch canal are facing acute drinking water crisis. It was, for example, considered that Podili mandal had ample reserves of drinking water. But even here, the borewells have all dried up this year.
The cattle are the worst-hit and farmers are being forced to sell away their animals due to the shortage of water and fodder.
Education minister and legislator of Yerragondapalem Adimulapu Suresh has words of promise to offer though. “We will make an assessment of the situation and seek additional funds from the CM to manage the situation,” he said.