Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Acute water shortage in Karakulam panchayat

G.Mahadevan

There are areas which do not receive water throughout the year

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even though the onset of the monsoon has shored up the drinking water situation of the capital city, residents of the adjoining grama panchayat of Karakulam continue to battle a perennial drinking water shortage.

Despite having adequate supply of water at source - Karamana river - the panchayat's outmoded distribution system has resulted in a once-in-three-days water supply situation for most of the residents of the 22 wards in the panchayat.

"There are areas that do not receive any water throughout the year," says grama panchayat president R. Preetha. "It is ages since places such as Myladumpaara, Tharatta, Chekkakkonam and Vengode received any water supply worth the name."

Under the Karakulam rural water supply scheme, the Kerala Water Authority pumps two million litres a day to various areas in the panchayat. From the pumping station at Kummi, water is brought to the booster station at Enikkara and then to the ground-level reservoir at Kallayam that has a holding capacity of seven lakh litres.

No filtering

Though this water is disinfected by chlorination there is no provision to filter the water supplied to the panchayat "When the scheme was first set up, Kummi had a filtering gallery consisting of perforated pipes and layers of sand and stone. This system has now been irreparably damaged," a KWA engineer said.

The KWA now supplies water to Karakulam on a rota basis; one day to areas in and around Vattappara, the second day to areas such as Enikkara and Mullassery and the third day to areas in and around Mukkola.

Flipside

The flipside of this system is that no area in the panchayat now gets adequate supply of drinking water.

The undue delay in implementing a Rs.5-crore proposal to set up a five mld treatment plant at Kummi and to overhaul the pumping and distribution system has only added to the woes of the people.

According to KWA officials the implementation of this scheme would enable the authority provide water on a daily basis to all parts of the panchayat.

"We may not be able to provide water round-the-clock, but all areas will get water for a few hours daily," a KWA engineer said.

The overhauling of the water supply system at Karakulam has become all the more important given the fact that areas such as Mukkola and Vazhayila have rapidly developed as residential areas over the past few years.

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