Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Vattiyoorkavu residents plan road blockade

Staff Reporter

KWA supplies over 25 tanker loads of water to affected areas daily

Water Woes: A couple of buckets of water a day - that is what families living in Malamukal are forced to make do with as the supply under the Vattiyoorkavu drinking water scheme is yet to resume. Photo: S. Mahinsha

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Residents of the Vattiyoorkavu panchayat have decided to block the road at Vattiyoorkavu junction on May 18 to demand immediate restoration of water supply from the pump house at Manalayam. The continuing disruption of supply through the Vattiyoorkavu drinking water scheme has prompted the residents to stage a stir.

The president of the Vattiyoorkavu grama panchayat, Ambika Kumari, said here today that a joint action council has been formed to carry out agitations for this purpose. "All political parties and residents' associations stand united on the issue. The Government and everybody else involved are taking the public for a ride," she said.

The flow of leachate — fluids seeping from garbage mounds — from the dumping yard of the city's garbage treatment plant at Vilappilsala into a rivulet feeding the river Karamana had forced the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) to shut down supply of water to about 3,500 households in the panchayat on April 17.

Tests carried out

Tests carried out by the KWA and the State Pollution Control Board (PCB) at that time had found that water downstream from the place where the leachate-laden rivulet empties into the river was unsuitable for drinking even after treatment and filtration. According to the chairman of the PCB, G. Rajmohan, the water reaching the pump house at Manalayam is still unfit for human consumption. The PCB has issued notices to the treatment plant management and to the City Corporation for failing to contain the leakage of leachate from the plant, he added.

Though the KWA is supplying over 25 tanker loads of water to the affected areas daily and has diverted some water from other pumping stations in suburban areas, this has proved insufficient to meet the requirements of the scheme's service areas that used to get 3.6 million litres of water a day. At present, getting a few buckets of water from a water tanker is considered a luxury, especially in areas such as Malamukal where there was shortage of water even when the scheme was operational.

Local residents are also angry that though the Water Resources Minister, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, convened a meeting on April 20 to `solve' the issue, no follow-up action has been taken to contain the overflow of leachate. Moreover, the decision taken at the meeting to request funds from the Capital Region Development Programme for supplying water through tankers is also seen as an indication that neither the Government nor the Corporation is willing to pay for setting right the leachate problem.

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