Distrb in Pillor water supply boz of pipe damage
Workers carrying out repairs to the Pilloor water scheme pipeline at Vayyampalayam on Friday. Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board is carrying out round-the-clock repair works to the main line of the Pilloor drinking water scheme to plug leaks at 15 locations over a stretch of 60 km.A major leak detected on Thursday at Vyampalayam, 30 km north of the city, led to the TWAD stopping supply to the eastern section of Coimbatore city and also more than 50 town panchayats and over 500 village panchayats.Water board officials said on Friday that timely detection of the leak helped in avoiding a breach in the main line. The pipe could have been damaged and this could have, in turn, stopped supply for days. If a breach had occurred, the pipe would have had to be replaced. Now, only the joints were being repaired to stop loss of water. The ongoing repair works have halted supply till Saturday. Officials said the pumping of water would begin at night on Saturday and water would reach the city on Sunday morning. The tail-end areas such as Pongalur would get water around Tuesday.About 100 workers were carrying out repairs to plug the leak at 15 locations over a 60 km stretch from the pumping station at Velliankadu and Palladam. The officials said that since a shutdown had to be made to plug the major leak, the break in supply for two day was also used to fix the other leaks also. These could not be attended to for sometime because a shutdown would have inconvenienced the people during summer.
Water managers in the Coimbatore Corporation said that the city was not affected as some stock was being maintained in the overhead tanks. As supply would resume on Monday morning, there were no apprehensions of a severe scarcity. Even a leak and the resultant shutdown during summer give anxious moments to the Corporation.With the water level in the Siruvani coming down, the Corporation's fallback option of diverting water from the Pilloor scheme to the Siruvani-served areas receives a setback whenever problems occur on the Pilloor main line.
