The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Tankers get water from KWA facility at Aruvikkara

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Wednesday, Apr 11, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Tankers get water from KWA facility at Aruvikkara

Staff Reporter

Move to benefit elevated zones in city

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 80 tanker loads of water were supplied till 5.30 p.m. on Tuesday by the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) to private tanker lorries from the vending points at the KWA's Aruvikkara facility.

This is for the first time that the KWA is supplying water to private tanker lorries from Aruvikkara. Till now, the tankers were filled from inside the Water Works compound at Vellayambalam.

Tankers belonging to the police and the corporation were, however, given water from the vending points at Vellayambalam.

At Arvuvikkara, the tankers are filled from an overhead tank, while at Vellayambalam, the water for the tankers was taken from the pipeline that feeds the reservoir at the Observatory Hill which, in turn, services the elevated areas in the city. By shifting the tankers to Aruvikkara, the KWA hopes to make available more water to the elevated zones in the city.

Only those tankers that brought letters of request for water from the intended beneficiary would be given water, a KWA engineer at Aruvikkara told The Hindu on Tuesday. "Not only that, the letter should specify the tanker agency through which the beneficiary is getting water. We make random calls to the person/organisation that has given the letter to see whether the requests we get are genuine. We sell water at the rate of Rs.24 per 1,000 litres. Once the coupon is given, it is checked and counter-checked at four different points before a tanker leaves our premises at Aruvikkara. Further, we maintain two registers in which each sale is recorded. At the end of each day, we will verify the meter readings on the vending points and the number of coupons sold to check whether they tally," the engineer said.

The tanker operators have also been told that they would not get water from Aruvikkara if their water tanks do not have lids and if their tanks are dirty. The tankers also have to prominently display a sign that they are ferrying drinking water.

KWA managing director T.P. Mohanlal said here that the extent of additional influx of water into the reservoir at the Observatory Hill would be known by Wednesday. If the water level at this reservoir touched the one-meter mark, steps would be taken to shore up the level at the Peroorkada reservoir by adjusting valves on the main pipelines. Following this, efforts would be made to make available more water in the line that serviced the Manvila region, he added.

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