VIJAYAWADA: The officials of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) have drafted a comprehensive action plan at an estimated cost of Rs 3.72 crore to provide uninterrupted drinking water supply to the residents during summer.
This year, the officials have increased the budget estimates for summer action plan by Rs 72 lakh to carry out repairs and ensure drinking water supply to tail-end localities of the city. According to the VMC officials, the Corporation is spending Rs 10 crore per annum to supply 160 MLD (million litres per day) drinking water to 12 lakh population in the city.
Recently, Endowments Minister Vellampalli Srinivasa Rao, along with Mayor Rayana Bhagya Lakshmi, conducted a review meeting to provide uninterrupted drinking water supply to the residents during summer. During the course of the meeting, the minister stressed the need to supply drinking water by arranging water boosters in the West Constituency, where majority of houses are located on hillslopes.
Municipal Commissioner V Prasanna Venkatesh told The New Indian Express that every year, the demand for drinking water supply has been increasing steadily and the residents of Patamata, Autonagar, Guru Nanak Colony, Moghalrajpuram and Gunadala have to grapple with erratic water supply.
"To overcome the situation, we already instructed the officials concerned to supply drinking water to the public in the tail-end localities like YSR Colony, Payakapuram, Rajiv Nagar and Kandrika by repairing the dysfunctional hand pumps. The officials are told to submit the estimates and ensure the completion of repair works on a war footing," he added.
Disclosing the details of amount being spent on summer action plan, the civic chief said that a major amount of Rs 1.02 crore is being spent to carry out repairs to damaged drinking water pipelines, Rs 63 lakh to repair hand and power bores/spare parts for hand pumps, Rs 60 lakh for paying water/power charges to other departments, Rs 47.2 lakh for transportation of drinking water, Rs 43.71 to repair motors and pumpsets, Rs 38 lakh towards maintenance material for repairs and Rs 18.1 lakh for flushing/deepening of drinking water source.
Besides, the Corporation will also deploy enough water tankers to supply drinking water to tail-end areas of the city, he said, adding that public can contact the civic officials at their respective divisions if they face any difficulties in getting the drinking water supply in the coming days.