Visakhapatnam Industrial Water Supply Company (Viwsco) and the Greater Visakha Municipal Corporation (GVMC) are jointly proposing to reduce water supply by 30 to 40 per cent to local industries including the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, NTPC and Vizag port from September.
Viwsco currently supplies 34 million gallon per day (mgd) of water to Vizag Steel, 7 mgd to NTPC- Simhadri power plant and 1.5 mgd to the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation. On the other hand, the GVMC supplies 16 mgd to 89 medium and large scale industries in and around Visakhapatnam. Apart from this, Viwsco supplies 18 mgd of water to GVMC for its domestic requirements.
However, now with reservoirs drying up, both Viwsco and the GVMC are finding it difficult to meet their requirements. “Water inflows from Gambhiram gedda reservoir and Gosthani river have totally stopped due to weak rains from the last few days. Other sources like Meghadrigedda, Thatipudi and Raiwada reservoirs are likely to go dry in 10-15 days, if the dry weather conditions prevail for another 7-10 days. Due to this, GVMC is not in a position to meet its domestic water requirements,” B Jayarami Reddy, director, Viwsco and chief engineer of GVMC, told Business Standard.
GVMC is supplying 40.30 mgd of water to domestic consumers as against the actual requirement of 56.80 mgd. “We want to divert 8-10 mgd of water from Viwsco to GVMC for our domestic needs,” he stated. Viwsco gets water from the Yelleru lift canal for industrial supply.
In the current scenario, Viwsco expects a 10-15 per cent drop in revenues during this fiscal. However, if the normal supply is restored, the company hopes to register Rs 65 crore revenues.