The Hindu              27.05.2013

Kodaikanal reels under acute water shortage

The hill station might have attracted a record number of
visitors this year. But the summer is harsher this time in the town as
the acute drinking water problem has left the residents in many areas at
the mercy of private water suppliers and a few streams in low-lying
areas, which too have only a poor flow.

Cashing in on
the situation, the private water suppliers sell a tanker load of water —
3,000 to 4,000 litres — at Rs.1,500 to Rs.2,000.

Three
months back, the cost of one tanker load was Rs.900, said a member of
the Hotel Owners’ Association. The sharp rise in the number of tourists
arriving here had worsened the situation, he added.

All
private water suppliers have been drawing water from a borewell close
to a private resort near Kodaikanal lake. The sale of packaged water too
has increased manifold, and empty water bottles account for 85 per cent
of the one-tonne plastic waste collected daily at Bryant Park.

Water
was supplied once in 16 days by the local body, the residents said, and
added that women had to walk long distances inside the forests to
collect water from the streams as the supply was not enough.

The
storage level in Observatory Reservoir, the main drinking water source
to the town, has already gone below three feet. Manoranjitham reservoir,
just one and a half km away from the old reservoir, has just one foot
of water.

Kodaikanal Municipality is supplying
drinking water to 82 per cent of the total population. It has sunk six
borewells near the lake, but three of them are dry and the yield is low
in the others.

Ground water too has gone down to 300
feet in Vattakanal, which is just four km away from the lake. With the
failure of monsoon this year, streams and minor falls are either dry or
have a very thin flow.

When contacted, Kodaikanal
Township Engineer Shahul Hamid said most of the residents rely on
municipal water supply, so the demand was high. The storage level in the
main reservoir was sufficient to maintain the supply only for a week.

Earlier,
24 lakh litres of water was lifted from the reservoir and 10 lakh
litres from other sources every day. Now not even seven lakh litres of
water could be drawn from the reservoir. Only good rain could improve
the situation, he added. As a long-term plan, the Kodaikanal
Municipality had sent a proposal to the government to implement Lower
Gundar Water Scheme to make use of the outflow from Berijam Lake and
Gundar falls at an estimated cost of Rs.43 crore, he added.

However,
sources said implementation of the project would not be easy as there
was stiff opposition to the project from the local people.