GUNTUR: The construction of the water reservoir at Gorantla, which is soon to be completed is going to put an end to long pending drinking water woes of people in the merged village of Guntur Municipal Corporation (GMC).
Earlier in 2010, around 10 villages were merged with GMC, including Gorantla, Reddypalem, Pedapalakaluru, Nallapadu, Chowdavaram, Naidupet, Potturu, Ankireddypalem, Etukuru and Budampadu villages. Since then, the civic body has been providing drinking water through water tankers, which makes it difficult and insufficient.
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 making proposals to increase the capacity of Sangam Jagarlamudi Head Water Works to supply water to the whole city.
Along with this, in 2019, under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme, a drinking water project was initiated at Gorantla with 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 get benefitted. The project halted due to various reasons, including delay in getting permissions, unavailability of suitable land and the Covid-19 pandemic. With GMC Commissioner Kirthi Chekuri’s initiatives, the works gained pace a couple of months back. While the two reservoirs are almost completed, laying of pipelines of head water works in Pandulavari Colony is on progress. The civic chief instructed the town planning and engineering department officials to speed up the pending works and finish them as soon as possible.
