With water levels in Osmansagar and Himayatsagar reservoirs plummeting to an alarming levels, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has taken up bio-remediation studies for both these reservoirs to monitor water quality levels.
The Osmansagar and Himayatsagar reservoirs which have been meeting the drinking water needs of Hyderabad for nearly 100 years are on the verge of drying up. The twin reservoirs supply nearly 40 million gallons of water per day (MGD).
As against the storage capacity of 3.900 TMC in Osmansagar, the present storage is about 0.300 TMC. Similarly in Himayatsagar as against the storage capacity 2.967 TMC, the present water available is about 0.358 TMC. Under the summer action plan, the water board has earmarked Rs 1 crore for bio-remediation studies for removing excess colour, odour and other adverse quality changes in these two reservoirs.
Bio-remediation will provide remedial measures for controlling excess colour, odour and other quality changes in these reservoirs once the levels reaches shallow depths.
The water board has entrusted the task to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur to monitor the raw water quality and bio-remediation. An assistant professor from IIT-K has started collecting the data from these lakes.
The officials say that in summer, the quality of water drawn from shallow depths and dead storage deteriorates due to the presence of algae and other contaminants and this water cannot be consumed.
To improve thee water quality by removing excess colour, odour, remedial measures like bio-remediation is being taken up in these reservoirs.