Hyderabad’s water board has ordered round-the-clock work to finish a pipeline link that would send an extra 40 million gallons a day of Godavari water to neighbourhoods that depend on the shrinking Singur and Manjeera reservoirs. The deadline is 15 November, and the managing director says it will not move by a single day. The emergency works buy time. The structural answer, a ₹7,360-crore expansion drawing on the Mallannasagar reservoir, is not due until late 2027.
On Monday, while much of Hyderabad was still recovering from Diwali, the managing director of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB), K. Ashok Reddy, was inspecting trenches at Ghanpur. His instruction to engineers was blunt. The pipeline connection that would carry an additional 40 million gallons a day (MGD) of Godavari water into the city must be finished by 15 November. According to The Hans India, there would be no extension, “not even by a single day”.
Crews are now working three eight-hour shifts. According to local media, pipe is being laid from both ends at once, and road crossings were due to begin on Monday night once permissions came through. The board is coordinating with Mission Bhagiratha, the state’s drinking-water grid, and with the Forest Department, whose land the route touches. “Alternative Godavari supplies should be prioritised for areas dependent on Singur–Manjeera sources,” Reddy said.
Why the hurry
Hyderabad draws its water from five systems:
- Krishna, pumped from Nagarjuna Sagar
- Godavari, from Yellampalli
- Singur and Manjeera, two reservoirs on the Manjira river north-west of the city
- Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar, the two historic city lakes
Together, according to local newspaper (6 November), they supply about 560 MGD, roughly 2,500 million litres a day.
The weak link this year is Singur–Manjeera. It was reported last week that the two reservoirs held only about 55 days of supply. Officials told the paper that significant flood inflows reach them only once every three or four years, and that there were almost none this year. The board attributes the decline to El Niño conditions. The other sources, Reddy said, hold reserves for 300 days or more. The problem is therefore not citywide scarcity. It is that one group of neighbourhoods, largely in the city’s west, is tied to a source that is running out.
Those neighbourhoods include some of Hyderabad’s fastest-growing areas. The board’s contingency plan covers about 3 lakh connections in nine Assembly constituencies. Earlier reporting placed many of them in the corridor between Patancheru and Narsingi, where high-rise towers have multiplied.
The stress is already visible. According to the board’s own figures, reported by Deccan Chronicle, bookings for water tankers rose from 48,284 in October 2025 to 1,92,889 in October 2026, a four-fold increase.
The stop-gap plan
The Ghanpur link is one element of a contingency package of about 60 MGD:
- Godavari: 40 MGD through the Ghanpur connection, routed partly through Mission Bhagiratha’s network.
- Krishna: 15 MGD through extra pumping and rationalisation, including supply from Mir Alam to the Sainikpuri balancing reservoir and 5 MGD to Manikonda.
- Distribution: about 5 MGD from adjustments within the network.
The underlying engineering idea is simple. Rather than wait for the depleted reservoirs to recover, the board is re-plumbing the network so that zones fed by Singur–Manjeera can draw instead on the Godavari and Krishna systems, which have water to spare. Interconnections of this kind make a city’s supply more resilient. They cannot, however, create water that the river basins do not hold.
Below the surface
The shortfall in the reservoirs coincides with falling groundwater, which many households and apartment complexes in western Hyderabad use to supplement piped supply. The Telangana Groundwater Department’s October report, carried by another local newspaper on 5 November, found water levels falling in 554 of the state’s 621 mandals. The state’s average water table stood at 7.77 metres below ground, about two metres deeper than a year earlier. In Hyderabad district it was 10.62 metres, against 6.12 metres in the earlier reading. The state government notified 365 mandals as drought-hit on 27 October.
Relief from the sky is not in sight. The India Meteorological Department’s Hyderabad centre forecasts dry weather across Telangana until at least 15 November. In Sangareddy district, villagers told media on Monday that about 200 of 250 acres of paddy in one hamlet had been lost to drought and power cuts.
The long-term fix
The structural response is the Godavari Drinking Water Supply Project Phases II and III. According to Siasat, the project is estimated to cost about ₹7,360 crore and will draw 20 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) of water from the Mallannasagar reservoir:
- Drinking water: 17.5 TMC.
- City lakes and river: 2.5 TMC to refill Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar and support the rejuvenation of the Musi.
- Infrastructure at Ghanpur: a tunnel, an 80-million-litre master balancing reservoir and a 1,170-million-litre-a-day treatment plant.
Media houses give October 2027 as the completion target. An earlier report said it would add about 300 MGD by December 2027, with adequate supply expected by the summer of 2028. The two dates differ, and NSH reports both.
Quality as well as quantity
More Godavari water also raises questions about Godavari water quality. A petition before the National Green Tribunal, first reported on 8 November, alleges that about 199 million litres a day of untreated sewage enter the river through more than 50 channels at Ramagundam, Mancherial and Bhadrachalam. It asks for independent testing at Yellampalli, which feeds Hyderabad. These are allegations, and no hearing date has been reported. They nonetheless underline that diverting more water from a river is only as good as the treatment and monitoring behind it.
