The Hindu         21.09.2016    

Coimbatore zoo to be redesigned

Coimbatore Corporation has engaged two planners to redesign the city zoo and make it compliant with the specifications of the Central Zoo Authority.

The planners will submit a few designs for the civic body’s consideration in the next 20 days.

Thereafter, the civic body will take it to the CZA for licence to run the zoo.

Help

According to sources, the Corporation wrote to the Tamil Nadu Forest Department asking for help in maintaining the zoo, for which it had run into trouble in the past - so much so that the CZA had cancelled the zoo licence.

The Department responded suggesting planners T. Uma Shankar and K. Cyril Rufus, who have worked on designing zoos.

Following the suggestion, the Corporation top brass met the two sometime ago.

Thereafter, the two visited the zoo in the first week of September to take stock of the situation.

Mr. Shankar told The Hindu that the challenge before them was to make maximum use of the limited available space keeping in mind the animals’ requirements and visitors’ convenience.

One of the steps they could suggest to the Corporation would be to release feral, domesticated and commonly found animals, birds, reptiles so that the animal count was reduced.

This could be easily done and make available space for the other animals. The second would be to assess the area required for each animal species because the CZA had clearly specified what should be the free ranging area.

Amenities

And, then there were amenities for visitors too.

Mr. Rufus said that as far as amenities for visitors were considered, they could suggest more sign boards with information and improve the overall aesthetics so that the visitors spent as much time as possible.

This would mean including the nearby VOC Park area with that of the zoo so as to take the total area available to around 11 acre.

Corporation officials said that the planners had just begun their work and they would require time to finish the master plan.

Budget

Once they come up with their plans, the civic body would discuss and chose the plan that suits the city and also its budget.

The city zoo has more than 500 birds, mammals and reptiles.

T. Uma Shankar, and K. Cyril Rufus will submit a report in 20 days, said corporation sources

The Hindu        15.09.2016    

Corporation assures people of adequate drinking water

Following protests by residents and black flag demonstrations in various pockets in the city, the Coimbatore Corporation has assured residents of adequate supply of drinking water.

In a release, the Corporation had said that for the 18.02 lakh people in the city, the Corporation was supplying water through various schemes.

For the residents it supplied water through Siruvani (62 million litres a day), Pilloor I (13 mld), Pilloor II (110 mld), Kavundampalayam-Vadavalli (11 mld) and Aliyar (7.8 mld) schemes. In all, it supplied 203.60 mld.

In wards that come under the Singanallur Assembly constituency (Wards 37, 38, 39, 40, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 74 and 75), it was until recently supplying water from the main storage reservoir in Ganapathy through the 500 mm pipeline. But due to leakage in the pipeline and supply loss, the residents were getting water only once in 12 to 14 days.

Pipeline

Now, the Corporation supplied water from the Ganapathy tank to D.J. Nagar tank through the newly laid 1,100 - 700 mm pipeline and that had resulted in improvement in water distribution - once in a week supply.

Likewise, the Corporation had also addressed the delay in water supply to residents in Wards 38 and 39 by quickly repairing the damages to pipelines caused during the execution of the road overbridge across the railway crossing.

In areas it supplied Siruvani water, it was able to maintain the supply at once-in-six-days even though the water level was less than that of last year by 15.61 feet.

Adequate supply

It was taking all steps to ensure adequate supply of water, it added.