Urban News

The Hindu      12.05.2010

No Pilloor water supply today

Special Correspondent

Photo: K.Ananthan

Cooling off: A leak in the Pilloor water scheme mainline forms a pool at Keeranatham near the city on Tuesday. -

COIMBATORE: The supply of drinking water under the Pilloor scheme will be stopped for the entire day on Wednesday (May 12) to plug leaks in the main line at Keeranatham near the city.

The leaks were detected on Tuesday. A major one among these led to the wastage of one million litres a day, out of the total 64 million litres supplied to the city and another 61 million litres to more than 500 town panchayats and village panchayats north and east of the city.

The leak formed a pool of water at Keeranatham, clearly pointing at the quantum of wastage.

Mayor R. Venkatachalam, Deputy Mayor N. Karthik, Coimbatore Corporation's Assistant Engineer in charge of Pilloor supply K. Karuppusamy and Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board officials visited the spot on Tuesday to assess the damage and plan repairs.

The Mayor and Deputy Mayor said after the inspection that the supply would be stopped on Wednesday to carry out repairs to the line. The supply would be restored in the evening. Mr. Karthik said that because of this the supply schedule in the city and other areas would be deferred by a day.

Repairs

“We have to carry out the repairs to prevent the problem from turning worse,” Mr. Venkatachalam said.

The water board said in a press release that normal supply would resume on Thursday morning.

The Coimbatore Corporation said it was living through the fear of disruption in water supply under the Pilloor scheme during the World Classical Tamil Conference from June 23 to 27.

With a little more than a month to go for the conference, the district administration had already asked the water board to prevent line bursts and leaks that had plagued the Pilloor scheme.

“We do not want water supply disruption during the conference,” Mr. Karthik said.

The Hindu 06.05.2010

Water supply erratic, say residents

Special Correspondent

COIMBATORE: Residents of T.N. Chinnaswamy Avenue in Ward 1 of the Coimbatore Corporation say they are going the worst time yet in terms of drinking water supply under the Pilloor scheme for over two months.

The layout is among the many that fall under the North and East zones of the Corporation that are struggling for water.

Official sources say that with the bulk of the city's new regularised layouts located in these zones, the residential colonies have been pushed into a phase of scarcity from that of abundance.

Pilloor scheme

The areas coming under the Pilloor scheme were envied by those in the Siruvani scheme areas because the former enjoyed a sustained allocation of 65 million litres a day throughout the year. But, the monsoon determined the quantity of supply in the Siruvani areas.

But, the residents in Wards 1 and 2 say that water adequacy was a thing of the past. Now, it is a tough struggle.

“Every day, at least 10 women walk to the Corporation's overhead tank near our colony in a desperate search for water,” says secretary of T.N. Chinnaswamy Avenue Welfare Association K. Ramachandran.

Ward 1 councillor K. Chandrasekar says: “It 13 days (till May 4) since we got water supply. When we take this up with the Corporation water supply staff or officials, they cite power shutdown as the reason. Three hours of power cut has a direct effect on the areas where water has to be pumped to from the water tank.”

Ward 2 councillor D. Jothimani too has a similar complaint. “We get water only once in 10 days,” she says. “And, there is no solution to this problem though we have taken it up with the water supply wing of the civic body.”

Mr. Chandrasekar wonders how Avarampalayam gets water once in five days and not Wards 1 and 2 that were not very far away.

Supply time

Mr. Ramachandran says the residents are even more upset with the water supply staff for not informing of the probable supply time.

“The supply is made at 11 p.m. If we know of this in advance, we can stay awake. Otherwise, we will never know of the supply.”

Even in the case of disruption in Pilloor supply because of problems in the supply line such as leaks of bursts, the residents say that they should know when the supply will be restored in their respective layouts after the supply in the main line is restored.