Water crisis grips Sangli, other towns

sangli: the residents of sangli, karad and other towns and villages located on the banks of the krishna river have been facing a severe shortage of water for over a week as the krishna river remained dry due to lack of planning by government officials. the sangli-miraj-kupwad municipal corporation’s water supply department officials have said that this was for the first time in 35 years that the city had to face such an acute shortage of water.the irrigation authorities had released water into the krishna river on february 22 when the river bed had turned totally dry. however, the discharge was so less that most of the water got percolated in the sands and did not reach sangli even after five days. hence, the irrigation authorities had to once again release the koyna dam waters into the river on march 1. the municipal corporation’s water supply department executive engineer, t.b. wadekar, has said that the present stock of water would meet the requirements for the next eight to 10 days only. meanwhile, bjp state committee member nita kelkar has charged that the district administration, ministers from the district and other elected representatives had not paid serious attention to the city’s water crisis. she said the lack of planning and coordination between the irrigation department and the maharashtra krishna valley development corporation (mkvdc) lead to the water shortage. kelkar has also called for immediate steps to ensure that such a situation does not arise in the summer season.