HYDERABAD: Greater Hyderabad is staring at a drinking water crisis but the situation in the nine peripheral areas of the city is much worse. Water supply to peripheral Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) circles such as Kukatpally , Uppal, Patancheru, Malkajgiri, Alwal, Ramachandrapuram, LB Nagar and adjoining areas is down to a mere trickle, with taps running dry on most days of the week as water supply is down to once in five days.Residents complained that even this restricted supply is poor. "Even on the once in five days that we have been getting water for the past three weeks, the supply lasts only 45 minutes instead of the promised one hour," said P Srinivasa Rao , Malkajgiri resident.T Nagaraju, a retired irrigation department engineer who lives in Alwal, too has a similar complaint: "The situation is so bad that sometimes we do not even get water for half an hour. This is why we are dependent on packaged drinking water."The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has drawn up ambitious plans to provide potable Krishna and Godavari water to quench the thirst of the residents of GHMC peripherals by constructing 56 reservoirs at a cost of `1,900 crore by the summer of 2018.Of the proposed 56 reservoir, the water board has already commissioned 12 reservoirs and another 10 are ready for dedication. But the biggest problem the water board is staring at is water, most drinking water sources that the city is dependent on are drying up due to lack of adequate rainfall. "By March April, we hope to improve supply , but it all depends on bountiful rain," said a senior HMWS&SB official. If the situation continues to remain grim, a water crisis is unpreventable, he said.

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