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Water scarcity in West Kochi to end soon, says Minister

Special Correspondent

`HUDCO project will solve the crisis'

KOCHI: Fisheries Minister Dominic Presentation has said that finding a permanent solution to the drinking water scarcity in West Kochi has been his main concern as Palluruthy MLA.

By the end of the year, he hopes, the problem could be solved to a large extent as water from the HUDCO project could be piped to the area.

Until then, to tackle the issue on a temporary basis, three more desalination plants would be set up immediately. Tenders for these plants — at Edakochi, Palluruthy and Cheriyakadavu — had already been called. These three were in addition to the two already functioning at Kumbalangi and Chellanam, Mr. Presentation told a `meet-the-press' programme here on Friday.

He said the HUDCO project work had been completed in his constituency. Pipes had been laid up to Konthuruthy and a huge water tank had been erected at Palluruthy. The work that remained was laying of pipeline along K.P. Vallon Road to connect Konthuruthy. There was a long delay in getting the Kochi Corporation's permission to lay pipe lines along this road as local residents had objected to digging the road. Now that the permission had been received, the pipeline work would be over in a few months and the water would flow to West Kochi by December. He said the HUDCO project had been delayed for years because of legal hurdles put up by the people who had feared that their land and homes would be lost. Some of them had even gone to the Supreme Court, thus causing the long delay.

Mr. Presentation said that since drinking water was a life-and-death issue, "it should not be contaminated with politics." He found it odd that recently the former Mayor of Kochi, who had been at the helm of the city's affairs for five years until a few months before, led a water agitation in West Kochi. "He could not solve the problem for five years when he had been in power," Mr. Presentation said.

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