Berhampur water supply has been disrupted after floods linked to Cyclone Arnab-induced heavy rain damaged the 135-year-old Janibili project, cutting the facility’s contribution to the city from about 90 million litres a day to 45 million litres, officials said.
The Janibili project was a key source for Berhampur, also known as the Silk City. Watco’s Berhampur division is using stored water in the Dakhinapur reservoir, collection wells and other sources to manage the shortfall while repairs are carried out.
“Due to the damage, the supply has now been reduced to 45 million liters,” Bikash Padhy, general manager of Watco’s Berhampur division, said, according to the report. The disruption affects a water system that was originally constructed in 1891 during British rule to store water and supply it for drinking and irrigation through a canal network.
Padhy said around 46 water tankers had been deployed in deficit areas. He said the city’s requirement was about 90 million litres a day and that approximately 75 million litres was currently being supplied, including 64 million litres from surface water and an additional eight million litres from 18 production wells. The figures supplied in the report do not fully reconcile arithmetically, but they indicate that the city is operating below its stated daily requirement and relying on multiple emergency sources.
The use of tankers and production wells reflects the operational pressure created when a major surface-water installation is damaged. Unlike a localised pipeline failure, disruption at a project that supplies a large share of the city requires the water utility and civic administration to combine reservoir reserves, groundwater extraction and mobile distribution to reach affected neighbourhoods.
Berhampur Municipal Corporation commissioner A Sasya Reddy has appealed to residents to use water judiciously. The civic body has also deputed labourers to speed up repair work at Janibili, while officials from the Rushikulya, Vansadhara and Nagabali river basins said the restoration work was expected to be completed soon.
The incident has also exposed the dependence of urban water supply on ageing infrastructure and river-linked assets during extreme rainfall. The Janibili project has served the city for more than a century, but the supplied information does not specify the precise component damaged, the repair cost, or whether a broader assessment of the project’s resilience is planned.
For residents, the immediate issue remains the gap between daily demand and available supply, particularly in areas dependent on tanker deliveries. The current response will continue through reservoir stocks, wells and tankers until the Janibili repairs are completed, officials said.
