Corporation plans to sink more borewells at Rs.1.5 crore
Corporation plans more bore wells to avoid water scarcityCoimbatore:A shortfall of 13 million litres a day of drinking water for the city has set the Coimbatore Corporation planning scarcity prevention measures for this summer. Mayor R. Venkatachalam confirms that there is shortfall of nine million litres under the Siruvani scheme.Requirement The requirement under the scheme is 87 million litres, but the present supply is 78 million litres.While the daily required supply under the Pilloor scheme is 65 million litres, the present quantum provided is 61 million litres.
Storage
The storage in the Siruvani Dam is 46.42 ft against the full reservoir level of 67.44 ft. The first of the three intake nozzles in the dam is visible, pointing out the dip in storage. With more than two months to go for the southwest monsoon to set in, the Corporation is planning efforts that will help avoid scarcity. Even as it maintains that the present storage will last till the monsoon sets in, the Corporation does not want to take any risk.It plans to restore alternate day supply in some areas where daily supply resumed after the overflow at the Siruvani Dam in August last year.
Enough water
The Mayor says that enough water will be available despite the shift to alternate day supply.
This move is to ensure that daily supply to some areas does not affect the rest of the city. Water managers in the Corporation defend the selective daily supply saying that enough tanks are not available to store water that flows through a gradient to the city. The Mayor says the Corporation plans to sink more borewells at Rs.1.5 crore.The outlay includes Rs. 50 lakh for the unapproved layouts.The city already has 503 borewells that were sunk as part of the contingency measures in 2002 and 2003.
Pipeline
The Corporation spent more than Rs.4 crore on these measures, including laying a pipeline to link the Pilloor line with the Siruvani water tank at Sivananda Colony. The link had helped divert 15 million litres of Pilloor water every day to the areas that were hit by shortage under the Siruvani scheme. Now, this line may even return the favour to the Pilloor scheme areas, the Mayor indicates. This is one of the measures discussed at a meeting the Mayor held with the Corporation officials recently to take stock of the water situation.
First phase
Mr. Venkatachalam has suggested to the officials that two borewells each can be sunk in all the 72 wards in the first phase."More wells should be sunk only on the basis of the requirement in each area," he observed."It is not as if only six borewells can provide enough water to a ward. Even two are enough if the ground water table is good," he says, anticipating a competition among councillors in demanding more borewells in their wards.As many as 147 layouts in East Zone have asked for 48 borewells."We need to spend Rs.1.4 crore to provide these many wells in one zone. But, the total outlay for the entire city is only Rs.1.5 crore. Therefore, we need to convince them on the provision of borewells as per need," he says.
Quota system
"At the same time, we cannot have a quota system - that each ward must have a certain number of borewells or that all of them should have an equal number. Some wards can have more if they need more," he says.(The Corporation has four zones, each consisting of 18 wards.) "We intend to ensure an hour's supply of borewell water every day to all the areas in the city."
The plans are to be discussed with the Deputy Mayor, Corporation Commissioner and other officials and the Chairmen of the four zones, according to the Mayor.The difficulty in providing 48 borewells in the 147 layouts is to be explained to each of the 18 ward councillors in the East Zone.
