LUCKNOW, May 2 -- With groundwater levels steadily declining over the years and reboring work failing to keep pace, nearly 90 tubewells remain defunct, exposing gaps in summer preparedness Lucknow which has around 750 standard tubewells and approximately 250 mini-tubewells.

As a result, thousands of residents are grappling with erratic water supply and low pressure even as the state capital has been under the grip of an intense heatwave over the past two weeks, the respite in the last couple of days notwithstanding.

The broader picture, however, masks stress in the urban core. The Lucknow city development block covering densely populated areas such as Aliganj, Gomti Nagar and Indira Nagar has a groundwater extraction rate of 107.28%, pl...