HYDERABAD: The State Government is actively contemplating Phase-III of the Krishna Drinking Water Supply Scheme on a public-private partnership (PPP) mode. The government has asked the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) to submit a concrete plan for implementing the project. If implemented, this would be the first project in the Water Board to be taken up on PPP mode. The estimated cost of the KDWSSP Phase-III is around Rs 1,670 crore. The idea to implement the project on PPP came as the State Government has no funds for such huge projects. The ongoing Godavari Drinking Water project Phase-I costing about Rs 3,375 crore is not going on expected lines due to severe shortage of funds and no proper allocation of funds in the budget for the last two years. To complete the same, the HMWS&SB is going to avail loans from HUDCO to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore.Sources told City Express that if the project is implemented on PPP mode, private agencies would be entrusted to collect monthly revenues for localities or O&M divisions which will be earmarked by the government for a certain period of time. The KDWSSP Phase-III has become important due to rapid urbanisation in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits. Besides, the special economic zones, IT sector and ORR growth corridors have created a huge water supply demand in addition to the normal domestic demand. The reliability of existing sources is diminishing with each passing year. The Osmansagar and Himayatsagar sources are drying up regularly and the dwindling inflows to Singur and Manjira sources have also sent alarm bells ringing. The main components of the proposed project are: Construction of WTP of 90 MGD capacity at Kodandapur (`149 crore) and Clear Water Transmission Pipelines of pumping/gravity from Kodandapur to Sahebnagar (in 4 packages) for a total length of 114.3 Km (`943 crore), construction of Clear Water Reservoirs, MBRs for storage of 117 ML capacity to facilitate intermediate pumping at Kodandapur, Nasarlapally, Godakondla, construction of Pump Houses and erection of Pumping Equipment (`65 crore) and laying of distribution trunk mains of 62 km length to connect to service reservoirs ( `150 crore). The total allocation for drinking water needs of Hyderabad from River Krishna is 16.5 TMC. Already, 11 TMC of water is being drawn through Phase-I and II Schemes. The balance available allocation from river Krishna is 5.5 TMC. Earlier, the proposal was that the government would give 50 percent budgetary support and the balance project cost would be arranged as a loan component from financial institutions preferably HUDCO which again will be under-written by the State Government.
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