The Hindu 23.04.2013
Civic body to hire more water tankers
Staff Reporter
Demand for potable water increasing in Erode.
As most parts of the Erode town are reeling under severe
water scarcity, the civic body has planned to hire more tankers to
supply water to the people, particularly those living in the areas that
are not served with piped supply.
The demand for the
supply of water through tanker lorries of the civic body had gone up as a
majority of the borewells in the town went dry due to monsoon failure.
People in many areas are taking to streets demanding adequate supply of
water. The problem is acute in the areas that are not connected with the
water pipeline network of the civic body.
Many
residents said that they could not afford to buy water from the private
suppliers on a regular basis and urged the civic body to improve the
supply through tankers.
Officials said that the civic body would hire private tankers as it did not have adequate number of vehicles to supply water.
“Currently,
we have only six vehicles and each tanker is making five trips a day.
We have hired five private tankers that are supplying water to a few
areas now. We will be hiring more vehicles as the demand for water is
growing,” a senior official said.
The demand is now
coming from the areas that have piped supply as well. The soaring
mercury has led to a sharp increase in the demand for water, the
official adds.
The civic body could not meet the
growing water requirements this summer with the 56 million litres of
water that it receives from the existing water supply schemes. The
existing schemes are grossly inadequate as the population in the town
almost tripled and more areas had been included in the Corporation
limits, officials point out.
Four municipalities, two town panchayats and five village panchayats were merged with the Corporation recently.
