Where has all the water gone? Children at an amusement park in Hyderabad

Hyderabad, Sept. 5: Prosperous cyber hub or dry zone? Two of Hyderabad’s middle-class and neo-rich townships have been declared drought-hit by the Andhra Pradesh government.

The Opposition Telugu Desam Party is angry at what it calls callous classification based only on the quantity of rainfall, without considering the per capita income.

Shaikpet and Ameerpet in the city’s north are among 665 mandals of the state’s 1,127 that the Andhra cabinet has endorsed as drought-hit because of deficient rainfall, in keeping with a proposal of the revenue department. A mandal comprises 20 revenue villages.

Shaikpet is home to not only colonies of NRIs and non-gazetted government employees but also to the infotech hub called Hitech City, which houses companies like Microsoft, Infosys and Wipro.

Ameerpet is the bastion of neo-rich families originally from coastal Andhra. They are agricultural labourers and farmers who have earned enough to set up small businesses in the city and branch out to other enterprises.

Both townships, however, have poor water supply because of insufficient groundwater, and some parts are still farmland.

The Desam ridiculed the three-month-old Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy government’s latest move as a manifestation of its indifference towards farmers’ woes.

“Although we cautioned the government against the impending drought, Congress leaders ignored our warnings,” former Desam minister K. Vidyadhar Rao said.

“Farmers went in for kharif crop as rains in June raised their hopes. Now the anticipated crop loss due to lack of rain and failure of the government in rescheduling past loans has affected them,” he added.

Rao pointed out the plight of Warangal and Nellore, which are among the districts reeling from acute drinking water scarcity.

“Warangal and Nellore town municipalities have declared that they cannot provide drinking water beyond one week unless supported by additional groundwater supplies,” he said.

“In Mahboobnagar and Anantpur districts, farmers are migrating to cities and other states following scant rainfall and fodder shortage. They are selling cattle to slaughterhouses,” the Desam leader added.

The government has already ordered a survey on the reported failure of nearly 14,000 borewells and serious drinking water problem in about 7,000 of the state’s 25,000 villages.