24-Hour Water Supply
The Coimbatore Corporation looks up to Pilloor Dam for making 24-hour supply of drinking water possible. The Coimbatore Corporation has invited eligible firms to provide consultancy services in preparing a detailed project report for a project that envisages 24-hour supply of drinking water in the city. Seven consultancy firms have submitted bids. The Corporation will scrutinise them to appoint a firm that can provide inputs on how to revamp or improve the existing supply system and also create one that will enable 24-hour supply.The Corporation has drawn up a Rs.113-crore project for daily supply of 65 million litres of drinking water.This Pilloor Phase II project is expected to add to the present supply of 65 million litres a day under the Pilloor Phase I scheme and the 87 million litres under the Siruvani Scheme. The project is to be implemented under the Central Government’s infrastructure scheme, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. The Government’s condition for funding is that all the mission cities that implement water schemes should work for "24x7 supply".
The Corporation had made this a part of the second phase project. The mission directorate had asked the local body to de-link the city’s internal distribution component from the main scheme as the latter involves drawing water from the Pilloor Dam to the city. Accordingly, 24-hour supply of drinking water that is unheard of till now because of limited water resources has been made into a separate scheme. The Rs.80-crore initiative envisages using a total assured quantity of more than 200 million litres a day from the Siruvani, Pilloor Phase I and Pilloor Phase II schemes to make an uninterrupted supply of 135 litres per capita per day.
Of the three schemes, the city cannot expect the Siruvani Dam to continuously provide 87 million litres every day. This quantum is assured only at the peak of the South West Monsoon and as long as excess water overflows from the dam. The drawal reduces from January to May. The Corporation pins hopes on the existing Pilloor scheme and the new one to offset the setback on the Siruvani front and also enable 24-hour supply. At present, water is supplied only on alternate days -- a measure resorted to five years ago because of scarcity.
By pointing at the rising number of water connections in the city, Mayor R. Venkatachalam says there has demand for an additional scheme even without a commitment for 24-hour supply. The Corporation feels the new scheme is needed even to restore supply for a few hours every day. At the time of Coimbatore turning into a corporation from a municipality, it had about 40,000 water connections spread over only 34 wards. The number of wards rose to 72 with surrounding local bodies merging with the municipality when it turned into corporation in 1981.
At that time, Siruvani was the only scheme supply drinking water to all these connections. When the Pilloor Phase I was commissioned in 1996, the number of connections increased to 82,500, says the Mayor. "At present, the city has 1.10 lakh connections. These apart, 156 connections have been given through special camps held from January 10 this year," he says. More connections based on at the applications submitted at these camps are to be released. From June, thousands of connections will be released in the more than 500 newly regularised layouts."This speaks of the amount of pressure that will be on the Corporation to provide adequate drinking water to all these connections.
