MADURAI: The Madurai city corporation
is hoping for monsoon to set in soon to keep away water woes, even as
it gears to tackle the drinking water crisis in the wake of failure of
rains.

Mayor V V Rajan Chellappa
told the councillors during the council meeting on Friday that the
civic body was making all preparations to ensure that the denizens of
the temple city do not face any drinking water shortage arising out of
monsoon failure.

“We are expecting the rains. But at the same
time, we have chalked out plans to address drinking water shortage.
Besides supply of water from tube wells, the corporation has planned to
supply water through tankers,” he said when councillors raised measures
taken by the corporation to address the water shortage.

River
Vaigai, the lifeline of Madurai, is almost dry with a thin stream of
unpotable water. The city, prior to its expansion required 155 million
litres per day. The Melakkal water pumping station along Vaigai in the
city supplied 16 million litres per day (MLD), while the Kochadai
pumping station supplied 21 MLD. The rest of the drinking water
requirement was met with two drinking water schemes from Vaigai dam that
supplied 68 MLD and 47 MLD, respectively.

However, due to the
monsoon failure and the falling level in the reservoir, the yield from
Melakkal pumping station dropped to a meagre 3.19 MLD and Kochadai
pumping station also ended up with abysmal water yield. “The water level
in Vaigai dam has come to 38.2 feet,” noted councillor K Rajapandian
during the council meet drawing the attention of the officials on the
need for immediate measures to address the water shortage. The water
level in Vaigai, is feared to drop further if rains fail to occur in the
coming days.

City corporation officials say that there would
not be any crisis in supplying drinking water till August in the present
circumstances and hope that rains would redeem the situation after
that. The first to be hit would be villages in local bodies that were
annexed to the city corporation last year, where very little drinking
water schemes have been implemented unlike the city.

In the past
years, water from Melakkal and Kochadai pumping stations was supplied
to the 72 wards of the then city corporation. However, now a portion of
the water from these stations has to be diverted to the annexed areas
too that have left a cut in the water supplied to the residents in the
city.