The Hindu : Front Page : Good monsoon but water goes waste

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 17, 2005

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Good monsoon but water goes waste

K.V. Prasad

Plan to build six more overhead tanks

COIMBATORE: After a torrid four years of scarcity from 2000, Coimbatore is experiencing a strange problem on the drinking water front. The Siruvani dam continues to overflow and cannot hold any more water that is badly needed on the suburbs. There is no shortage in the city. Some areas even get daily supply as there are not enough overhead tanks to store water that rushes through a gradient to the storage points. Under such a circumstance, the arrival of North East Monsoon does not offer anything extra for the scheme - above what has already been provided by the South West Monsoon.

The Coimbatore Corporation has been consistently pursuing the issue of raising the height of the dam by a foot so that it can hold more water that is required to meet the rising demand in the city itself.

Suburbs struggle

A clutch of municipalities and panchayats south and west of the city are struggling to provide water to the burgeoning population in their areas. Close to 10 such local bodies together get only about 10 million litres a day (mld) while the city gets 87 mld out of the total 101 mld of permitted drawal as per an agreement with Kerala. (The dam is located in Kerala just across the border between the two States). The Corporation had suggested to the Tamil Nadu Government that the dam's height could be raised to store surplus water. The civic body says Kerala is opposed to it but talks are still on. Siruvani dam is among the other water issues Tamil Nadu is pursuing with Kerala.

Increasing dam height

Increasing the height of the dam is vital for the Corporation, given the rapid development in the city, especially housing. Commercial complexes are also on the rise and this means more pressure on the Corporation for drinking water.

While negotiations with Kerala will go on, the Corporation has planned to build six more overhead tanks in the city to store enough water for alternate day supply. Each tank will have a capacity of 1.6 mld, according to sources in the civic body.

Water managers in the city point out that good rain alone will not help local bodies. Storage for avoiding crisis during summer will have to be done. But this time, the Siruvani dam has no space to accommodate what the North East Monsoon can offer.

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