The anxious wait of the residents of Ongole for the Krishna river water ended as the water released from the Nagarjunasagar reservoir reached the second summer storage tank in the town on Thursday.
The water gushing out from the Ongole branch canal brought cheers to the denizens, who were getting the supply once in three days earlier.
The supply to the city was put at 100 litres per capita day (LPCD) when compared to the standard supply of 135 LPCD.
The civic officials also heaved a sigh of relief as the water storage was sufficient only for a week with the first summer storage tank being empty. The city is dependent on the Krishna river for replenishment of its reservoirs.
Storage capacity
At present, the second summer storage tank has 409.02 million litres (ML) of water. The combined storage capacity of the two summer storage tanks is 5,800 ML, including 3,850 ML in the first one.
“We have started receiving 235 cusecs of water from Thursday. The inflows into the summer storage tanks will be stepped up to 300 cusecs in the coming days,” said Municipal Engineer D. Sundarama Reddy.
The officials took care that the released water got filled in the tank without developing any breach on the way. The filling up of SS tank I would start on Thursday night.
There will be no water shortage in Ongole till March 2021, when a fresh replenishment from Nagarjunasagar would be required. It will take another 15 days for the two tanks to get filled up, he said.
Full quota
Meanwhile, DCC president Eda Sudhakar Reddy accused State Energy Minister Balineni Srinivasa Reddy of not keeping his promise to provide drinking water to denizens on alternative days. “Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar reservoirs are full their full capacity. Yet, the city reservoirs are yet to be filled up due to mismanagement of the water which was drained into the Bay of Bengal,” he lamented.
The full quota of the Krishna water to Prakasam district remains elusive all these years as it has been in the tail-end of Nagarjunasagar Right Bank Canal system, he added.
