ONGOLE: The district Rural Water Supply (RWS) authorities are getting ready to tackle water scarcity problems ahead of summer with a full fledged action plan prepared with an estimated cost of Rs 23.18 crore to cater the drinking water needs to 266 villages in all 19 mandals of the district.Most water scarcity problems during the summer were faced by the people living in the western Prakasam part.
The main reasons for the water scarcity problems are occurred due to the low ground water, fluorine contaminated issues and also the region often receives less rain fall with no sufficient water storage facility.With these circumstances, the people of the western Prakasam are waiting for the completion of the government project, ‘Pula Subbaiah Velugonda Reservoir’, which will cater drinking and irrigation water needs of the area.
The government has also started ‘Mega Water Grid’ project and are going to implement the Central government’s, Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) scheme here to provide tap water supply to all house holds.The RWS authorities identified 266 villages belongs to 19 mandals of the district to implement their Special Summer Action Plan-2023, to the end of June-23 ending.
Around 79 habitations belonging to 11 mandals under Yerragondapalem, Darsi and Markapur assembly constituencies limits are facing serious drinking water problems.“We are supplying drinking water through tankers to all 79 habitations in 11 mandals of the western Prakasam district with making 750 trips daily. For this, we are spending nearly Rs 400 per a water tanker trip. As the summer approaches, more villages will face water scarcity problems,” said Superintending Engineer (SE) of RWS wing Mardhan Ali. Many community, agriculture, bore wells in many villages became empty, he added.
With Nagarjuna Sagar project, the authorities are exercising on 100 per cent filling of all local water resources including the village tanks, protected water storage tanks, summer storage tanks etc,.“There are around 137 big and small medium tanks in the rural areas of the district. Out of which, 98 tanks are under NSP canal limits, five tanks under Krishna-West delta limits and another 34 tanks are under the ayacut of Gundlakamma Reservoir project.