GUNTUR: Water woes of residents of 10 villages, which were merged with Guntur Municipal Corporation (GMC), will soon come to an end as the construction of two water reservoirs as part of the Gorantla project is nearing completion. In 2010, 10 villages were merged with the GMC, including Gorantla, Reddypalem, Pedapalakaluru, Nallapadu, Chowdavaram, Naidupet, Potturu, Ankireddypalem, Etukuru and Budampadu. Since then, the civic body has been providing drinking water through tankers in these areas, which is far from sufficient.
For the past decade, residents of these have been suffering from a lack of drinking water and the situation gets worse during summer. Currently, the estimated population of the city is around 10 lakh and about 125 million gallons of water is being supplied to the people each day, which is far from sufficient. In order to resolve the water problems, the officials are preparing proposals to increase the capacity of Sangam Jagarlamudi head waterworks from which the city gets its water. Along with this, in 2019, under the AMRUT scheme, a drinking water project was initiated at Gorantla at Rs 33 crore.
The 53 MLD project includes a 10 km pipeline and two reservoirs, one with 600 KL and another with 4,200 KL capacity. About 2.34 lakh people will be benefitted from the project. Due to various reasons, including delay in getting required permissions, unavailability of suitable land, and the Covid-19 pandemic, the project was delayed. Now, while the two reservoirs are almost completed, the land acquisition for pipelines of head water works in Pandulavari Colony is still pending.
GMC Commissioner Kirthi Chekuri has instructed the town planning and engineering department officials to speed up the pending works and resolve land acquisition issues at the earliest. The villagers are hopeful that they will receive sufficient drinking water next summer.
2.34 lakh people to get benefits
Gorantla project was taken up at `33 crore. The 53 MLD project includes a 10 km pipeline and two reservoirs, one with 600 KL and another with 4,200 KL capacity. About 2.34 lakh people will be benefitted.