Times of India 01.08.2009
Infrequent water supply tops council meetings in suburbs
CHENNAI: Infrequent water supply to residents topped the agenda at the municipal council meetings in Alandur, Pallavaram and Tambaram on Friday.
Despite frequent showers in the suburbs, the water table in many areas continues to be low and residents have to rely on the water supplied by the local bodies. However, the irregular supply has made life miserable. "For more than 10 days now, the residents in my ward (No: 23) have not got water and I have not been able to answer those who elected me," said Alandur councillor V N P Venkataraman.
Cutting across partylines, councillors blamed the Alandur municipal officials for failing to address public grievances. Municipal chairman A Duraivelu, in fact, took a dig at the officials and said that the councillors could henceforth come directly to him with their problems rather than go to the officials.
The various councillors demanded that municipality take more water from the Metrowater and from private tanker lorries. They also insisted that the existing overhead tanks be strengthened and new overhead tanks built as the population in the area had grown over the years. The number of overhead tanks had not increased, they said.
Similarly, councillors in the Pallavaram and Tambaram municipalities raised the irregular supply of water in their localities.
Councillors of the Tambaram municipality demanded that the work on the water supply scheme, aimed at providing uninterrupted supply to residents, be expedited.
In Pallavaram, the councillors demanded better roads before the monsoon sets in. Most of the councillors said the municipality should complete the underground stormwater drainage project at the earliest as the channels dug up for the purpose weren't closed and were posing a risk to residents.
