The BMC has decided to put its foot down in the issue between Mumbai and Thane over water supply. At a meeting between the two municipal corporations and state Water Supply and Sanitation department on Wednesday, the BMC officials will state that that using Mumbai's conveyance system for supplying 100 million litres a day (mld) of water from Bhatsa dam to Thane will result in the city reeling under a water shortage.

Dirty and unsafe water is being supplied to citizens of Kurnool city. But the municipal authorities are content with an explanation for the reason without taking any measures for the purification of stagnant tank water. Despite opposition corporators raising the issue and expressing concern at the authorities over supply of poor quality water in the recent council meeting, the authorities merely told members that the reason lay in the lower levels of the supply water tank but gave no assurance of addressing the problem.

Had the Gujarat State Water Supply and Sewerage Board (GSWSSB) repaired this leak, some 5,000 people in Surendranagar would have been going thirsty. Living on the outskirts of the town, it is a routine for women of this middle-class locality of Khann to spend hours standing by the leaking pipeline. And fights are common too. The pipeline supplies water from Dholi Dhaja dam to surrounding villages. If there was no leak, people here would have had to drink extremely brackish water from hand pumps.

Numerous localities in the city including Desi Mehamandari, Rajpura Colony and Factory Area have been facing an acute shortage of water for the last couple of weeks. Even though municipal corporation officials have been informed about the menace, they have apparently not seen it fit to ensure round-the-clock water supply. "On normal days water is supplied twice during the day

Thane's notorious water scarcity crisis might be on its way to becoming even worse with the Thane Municipal Council announcing that the first phase of its proposed water supply project is running behind schedule by a month. The civic body missed the March 31 deadline and it was expected that the authorities would meet the April 15 deadline. Now the masses and their representatives will have to wait till May 12 to see if the revised deadline is met or not. Till then, Thane citizens have no choice but to suffer the water scarcity.

About 100 people of Durganagar and Sathya Sai Nagar areas in Dharmavaram town were hospitalised after suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea due to consumption of contaminated water on Thursday. According to people, municipal officials supplied drinking water to the two areas at 4 pm on Wednesday. People who drank the water, developed vomiting and diarrhoea.

In a major move, the state government has shelved the proposed Krishna Phase-III project and replaced it with the Godavari project to bring 10 tmc of water in phase-I from the Sripada Sagar reservoir in Yellampalli in Karimnagar district. The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board has invited tenders for the execution of the Rs 3,300 crore project to bring Godavari water to the city.

A large number of localities were deprived of drinking water on Tuesday without prior intimation. Water was not released to about 70,000 connections in Vijaynagar Colony, Humayunnagar, Red Hills, Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills, Old Mallepally, Allabanda, Asifnagar, Rajendernagar municipal circle areas and surrounding localities. These areas had gone without water for four days last week after Krishna water pipeline burst at Lenin Nagar.

The Delhi Jal Board, which is courting consumers with the promise of additional water from its soon-to-be-commissioned recycling plants and as largesse from the neighbours, will have to work doubly hard to meet the demands of people in four areas designated as most critical.

The Central Water Commission has completed the pre-feasibility study ordered by the Delhi government to tackle the water crisis in the city. The commission has proposed to the government to construct a water barrage that will be used to store overflows from the Yamuna in monsoons. Subsequently, the Delhi Jal Board has accepted the proposals and the work on the project is likely to start soon.