Sunday, January 23, 2011

Field visit to peri-urban village Mallampet, Hyderabad – January 13, 2011

Mallampet Village (Qutubullapur Mandal)
Rangareddy District, Andhra Pradesh

Sara Ahmed (IDRC) and SaciWATERs peri-urban team visited the peri urban village of Mallampet in Hyderabad on the 13th of Jan, 2011. Several observations were made during the visit. Large quantities of ground water is being abstracted from this village and supplied to nearby industries by private tankers. This village has three bores for this purpose, out of which two have dried up and only one bore, 350 feet in depth is operational. Ground water is pumped and stored in an open tank, water from which is then pumped into the tankers, each having a capacity of 10,000 litres. For every trip that the tanker makes, the tanker company pays Rs 600 to the owner of the land with the bore. Twenty such trips are made in one day, seven trips during day time and thirteen at night. Electricity bill for each month is around Rs 16,000 borne by the land owner.


Water from this village is supplied to approximately 10 industries in the Bollaram Industrial Area located nearby mostly having boilers, iron foundries, chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Around 40 tankers operate in this area with 3-4 tankers operating in Mallampet village.


At the Panchayat office, the Sarpanch informed that drinking water from the Manjira River is supplied till Nizampet village which is 6 km far and Mallampet doesn't have a water supply. Some people in Mallampet sell Manjira water by bringing the water from any of the surrounding villages that gets the supply. The villagers, thus, depend on bore water for their drinking as well as daily needs. There are also high levels of fluoride in the groundwater because of which the panchayat has set up a water treatment plant. Groundwater is stored in a tank (locally known as samp), this is then transferred to an overhead tank from which water is supplied to taps and the filter plant. It costs Rs 2 for a can of 20l water, if collected at the plant location, home delivery costs Rs 8 for each 20l can.


There are 3 lakes (known as cheruvu locally) in the village which are getting polluted by the industrial effluents as well as household wastewater. Construction of the outer ring road is being carried out adjacent to one of the lakes called Khatwa cheruvu, A portion of this lake is being filled up in order to construct the outer ring road. This is a very large lake and relatively not as polluted, but is lined by industries on one side as well as bore wells along the lake periphery. Another lake, Chennangi cheruvu on the other hand, is very polluted primarily because of the waste water released by a number of households nearby. A lot of plastic materials, garbage as well as dead fishes were spotted on the banks of the lake during the field visit. 

Field visit by Dr. Sara Ahmed and SaciWATERs team to peri-urban village Mallampet, Hyderabad.

Few pictures of the field visit by Sara Ahmed (IDRC) with the SaciWATERs team to Mallampet village in peri urban Hyderabad. Large quantities of ground water is abstracted from this village and supplied to nearby industries by private tankers.


Pictures courtesy - Sara Ahmed 



 Ground water being pumped out and stored in an open tank 




Water from tank is pumped into the tanker. Each tanker has a capacity of 10,000 litres. 



For every trip that the tanker makes, the tanker company pays Rs 600 to owner of the land with the bore



Borewell on ‘Khatwa lake’ in the village. A portion of this lake is being filled up in order to construct the outer ring road. 



 Chennangi lake - polluted primarily because of the waste water released by a number of households nearby. A lot of plastic materials, garbage, as well as dead fish were spotted on the banks of the lake during the field visit.