Will hyderabad meet fatehpur sikri's fate?

HYDERABAD: When water vanished from Fatehpur Sikri, leaving nothing for his people, horses and camel, Mughal emperor Akbar left the city lock stock and barrel for Agra in 1585.
If history has shown that civilizations have gone extinct once water vanished, there is also evidence of how water carried people to newer places. In the modern era, Goldman Sachs describes the precious substance as “the petroleum of the next century“, even as tiny wars break out over water across continents.
Back home in Hyderabad, hydrogeologists are a worried lot because the city is turning into a concrete jungle and the water table is diminishing rap table is dimini idly. As they search for new aquifers, the big question is whether the twin cities, in the foreseeable future, would turn the Fatehpur Sikri way? Hyderabad, which has been witnessing a very haphazard monsoon, has seen groundwater sinking to abysmal levels in the last five years. According to the groundwater department, Nampally area has been the worst hit this year, with the water table dropping by 12.67 metres this year as compared to just 3.7 metres a year ago.
Similarly, Kulsanpura in Asifnagar saw groundwater dropping by 10.21 metres this year compared to just 4 metres last year. In the heart of city ­ areas such as Marredpally and places around the Secretariat ­ examinations show a five metre fall in groundwater levels.
In the neighbouring district of Ranga Reddy, indiscriminate borewell digging has led to huge depletion of groundwater, with some places reporting a drop by an astounding 24 metres.
According to the Nation al Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), the water table can only be replenished if at least 16% of the total rainfall seeps into the Earth to get recharged as groundwater. But with the city turning into a concrete jungle, and hardly any rain this year, barely half of the water has trickled in.
The groundwater resource in Hyderabad, which is mostly represented by typical unconfined shallow aquifers in hard rock, generally occupies the upper 20 metres of the subsurface profile. With big builders erecting cellars and sub cellars in huge apartments and dozens of new malls, blocking the last remaining aquifers, scientists say it could be the death knell for the city.
Ignoring the geological structure of the rock bed, builders are digging deeper into the fractured-weathered layer, where there is no water. NGRI studies have revealed that most of Hyderabad's water is upto 30 feet and further down is only bedrock, which is hard and impermeable.
With ground water depleting at an alarming level, the city, which once depended on water from its two main reservoirs ­ Osmansagar and Himayatsagar ­ to meet its water requirements, has now fallen back on the Nagarjunasagar reservoir.
But experts say, depending on one source could prove to be detrimental in the long run, especially with poor monsoons predicted for the deccan area in the next few years.
While many countries facing a similar situation have started procuring sea water by de-salinating it in gigantic plants and supplying it through pipelines akin to gas pipelines, this option doesn't look feasible for Hyderabad as the nearest sea port of Machlipatnam is located about 350 km away.
With a raging dispute over sharing of Krishna river water between the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana worsening by the day, chances of the mighty river coming to the rescue of Hyderabadis look remote.
Disputes over water have led to full-fledged civil unrest all over the world.For instance, this year, drought-hit Sao Paolo saw huge protests spilling onto the streets. It may be recalled that the revolution against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad started after a band of angry youth in a southern town began putting up anti-establishment graffiti due to acute water scarcity. The newly elected gov ernment of K Chandrasekhar Rao, which is now trying to de-water Hus s a i n s a g a r, must give a lot of thought of protecting the city's 300-odd lakes from en croachment in view of the impending crisis looming large over the state. Only serious political will can prevent the city of Hyderabad from drying up.