The Hindu        28.01.2011

Corporation stays blind to their demand for water

Big rISK: A visually challenged person collecting drinking water from a pit. —Photo: A. Shaikmohideen

The Tirunelveli Corporation's two-year-old assurance on installing a drinking water tap for the benefit of eight families having a good number of visually and physically challenged persons near Maharaja Nagar ‘Uzhavar Santhai' has vanished into thin air as these people are still collecting their drinking water from a roadside pit everyday after crossing the road amid speeding vehicles.

For all these families, living in small tiled houses near the Blind School on the Maharaja Nagar Farmers' Market Road for more than 27 years, the pit in a highly unhygienic condition is the source of drinking water. Water leaking from the valve of a main pipeline carrying drinking water to a posh area accumulates in the pit every morning.

Apart from quenching the thirst of these eight poor families, the pit also quenches the thirst of stray dogs and cattle.

Though Speaker R. Avudaiyappan has been crossing this pit for the past five years to reach his home, just 500 metres away from this colony, no step has been taken to provide a water tap for these differently-abled persons.

There is every possibility of the visually challenged persons being hit by speeding vehicles. After their repeated appeals to the Corporation officials praying for a water tap near their house failed to make any positive impact, petitions were forwarded to the district administration and to the minister concerned, but those efforts too went in vain.

The corporation, which received the petition in 2008, gave a reply: “We'll not cut the road to lay the drinking water pipeline from the main pipe for installing a tap near your house”. The Corporation, which has turned a blind eye to the issue of laying speed-breakers near the houses of politically influential persons of Tirunelveli and Palayamkottai, also refused to take steps for erecting speed-breakers near the houses of these visually challenged, also seeking free house-site pattas.

After this issue was highlighted in The Hindu in December 2008, the Corporation Council passed a resolution in favour of installation of water taps. However, no step has been taken during the past two years to fulfill their demand.

The Hindu        19.01.2011

Improve drinking water quality, say residents

UNQUENCHED: Bhavani Combined Water Supply Scheme has not been able to fully satisfy the demands of residents. - Photo: K.Ananthan

Residents of Kavundampalayam Municipality and Vadavalli Town Panchayat have been complaining about poor water quality for the last two months.

They say that River Bhavani water quality was poor and it carried an unpleasant taste. The two local bodies have been getting the river water since June 2010 under the Kavundampalayam-Vadavalli Combined Drinking Water Scheme to meet additional drinking water requirement.

K. Kanakaraju, Secretary, Thendral Nagar Makkal Nala Sangam, said water quality had started deteriorating during the rains and had remained so.

His enquiries with the officials from the two local bodies and Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board officials revealed that the rain water muddied the area where the river water was tapped and that water quality would improve once the rains stopped.

The use of chlorine to disinfect the water had also led to the loss of taste.

He further said that the water, when boiled, resulted in formation of sediments and food cooked using Bhavani water was poor in taste. V.M. Shanmugasundaram, former president, Vadavalli Town Panchayat, said Vadavalli residents too had been getting the not-so-good quality water for the last month or so.

To fathom the reason for the fall in quality of water, a few volunteers from Thendral Nagar visited Thekkampatty, near Mettupalayam, from where the TWAD Board drew water from River Bhavani.

He said the spot where the Board drew water was polluted because of water drained out of agriculture fields and waste water discharged from a company. Effluents from a few other industries also passed through the area.

The team suggested that the TWAD Board channelize the waste water so as to divert it from the water collection point and also shift the water collection point to the centre of the river bed.

Acknowledging the problem, P. Gurusamy, Executive Engineer, TWAD Board, said rain water and waste water flowing near the collection point had somewhat impacted the water quality.

The Board had taken steps to shift the collection point and also build a channel to divert the water to take it away from the point. The Board draws 10 to 11 million litres a day and supplies it to over a lakh of residents in the two local bodies by storing the water in 19 overhead tanks. He promised that the water quality would improve in the coming days.