Hyderabad, November 05: A long queue of women with empty buckets greets us as we enter PJR Nagar in Malkajgiri. The residents feel they are ‘lucky’ when they get drinking water once in three days as sometimes they get water just once a week. And at times, even that is uncertain.
The situation in most of the 50 slums under the Malkajgiri circle is pathetic, there are no tap connections and water is supplied through tankers. The uncertainty about the arrival of water tankers adds to the citizens’ woes.
Besides the drinking water problem, frequent traffic jams, pollution and a mosquito menace plagues people living out here. As the candidates gear up for campaigning for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections, the residents of Malkajgiri appear immune to promises.
“We have had the water problem for 15 years. Most of the time, residents end up quarrelling over a bucket of water and the situation is maddening in summers,” says B Ramu, a resident of Indira Nehru Nagar.
Ramu hopes that permanent water connections to each household are given out after the elections.
It is not just this colony, scarcity of water exists in Vinayaknagar, Babu Jagjeevan Rao Nagar and Ekalavyanagar.
Then there are certain ‘water rules’. A family residing in a rented house is eligible only for five buckets of water whereas it is 10 buckets in case of house owners.
Locals are hoping the situation will improve as water reservoirs at Sainathpuram Officers Colony and Vajpayee Nagar Colony, which are under construction since five years, might be completed in the coming months.
Most of the residents in Malkajgiri are settlers and employees, particularly defence and bank employees. Malkajgiri which had natural resources in the form of lakes and rocks earlier, has fallen prey to the real estate boom.
The Ramakrishna lake and Banda lake, which once upon a time were serene locations, are severely polluted as the sewerage from all houses in the area lands in these two lakes.
As a result, the lakes have become a breeding place for mosquitoes and pigs as garbage is also dumped on its banks.
“Municipal authorities have been neglecting the scientific disposable of sewerage.
As result all the lakes in and around Malkajgiri have become polluted,” Dr M Kishore, a resident of Neredmet said. The prevalence of mosquitoes has led to the several viral fever outbreaks among the locals.
“There are unconfirmed reports of swine flu in the locality as well. The elected candidates have to do something to tackle this mosquito menace. Do we not have the right to a peaceful night’s sleep,” asks B Jayadev, an auto driver.
Malkajgiri Circle is one area under the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) where the entire locality is surrounded by railway tracks.
As a result, there are several traffic snarls. With no flyovers in the locality, residents have a tough time.
The problem exists at Safilguda, Vajpayee Nagar Colony, Gowtham Nagar, Anand Bagh, Upariguda and some other colonies. Though the local Congress MLA Akula Rajender promised to take up the issue during the recent Assembly elections, locals complained that nothing concrete has happened till now.
—-Agencies