Hyderabad, March 19: Residents in localities near Lakshminagar crossroads literally experienced Coleridge’s famous lines when drinking water gushed into their houses, after a pumping main burst in Attapur.
While many children saw their school buses come and go, they were unable to come out of their houses which were surrounded by two to three feet water. Some in their desperation jumped over their back wall to reach their exam centres.
“I was woken up by our tenant at 6.30 a.m after she found water coming into our drawing room. It was like a flowing river. She had heard about a water pipeline burst,” said Adeeb Unnisa, owner of a building near Lakshminagar crossroads. She and her tenants spent the better part of the day cleaning up the mess. She has made a CD of water entering their house on earlier occasions and plans to show it to officials. “We all helped two little children pass over a wall to make sure they reach their exam centre on time,” said Manal Ali, a fourth-grade student, who gave a miss to school on Friday. A few yards away, Mohd Shakir, an RTA agent sat drying application forms which he found submerged under four feet of water, after he opened his shop around 10 a.m. He was busy making arrangements to drain out the water.
However, water rushing into their houses and shops has not been a one-off incident in the area. “This has happened many times before. In the last five years since I set up my shop here, it must be the sixth time that the pipeline burst and water entered my shop. Despite repeated complaints, the situation has not changed. Only six months back, there was a leakage in the pump main which led to the pipeline bursting,” said Zubair Khan, a mobile store owner. He had rushed to his shop to ensure his electronics goods did not get damaged in the water. Triveni, a housewife spent a cumbersome day, cleaning up her house as the receding water left behind buckets of slush. “This happens after every few months. No one responds to complaints,” she said.
“It looks like there was a leakage in the pumping main. The water lines from Mallepalli to Prashasan Nagar carries 16-18 MGD water,” informed a worker, repairing the pumping main. “The leakage was due to a valve in the pumping main being worn out. We are carrying out repair and will be running pumps by tonight itself,” said Vishweshwaraiya, chief general manager, Water Works department.
–Agencies