Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Lanka island thirsty for potable water

Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

Tapping all sources: Women collecting water from a pit dug under a leaking pipe. A scene from the parched Lanka island area in the Thiruvallam ward in Thiruvananthapuram.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The sound of a dripping tap sends the residents of the Lanka island into a mad scramble to collect water.

The 52 families on the small island near the Thiruvallam bridge receive water only once or twice a week through a pipe laid across the Karamana river.

Every morning, the womenfolk bearing pots trudge across a narrow bridge to collect water from a spring at the bottom of the Punchakari hill.

The situation continues round the year.

There are two wells on the island, but the water is too polluted even to wash clothes. The island, measuring 100 hectares, is situated near the confluence of the Karamana and Killi rivers and the Parvathy Puthanar canal.

Most of the houses are thatched.

“Both the rivers and the canal are heavily polluted. So is the groundwater. Some years ago, when the island was connected to the piped water network of the Kerala Water Authority, the residents heaved a sigh of relief. But that was short-lived,” says Sreekumar, a social worker who manages a school for deaf and dumb children on the island.

Residents allege that the valve regulating water supply to the island is turned off at the Thiruvallam pump house to divert the flow to hotels and tourist resorts in the neighbourhood.

“We do not have the clout to resist the powerful tourist lobby or to influence the officials,” Mr. Sreekumar says.

Local people believe that wastewater discharge from the Milma dairy at Ambalathara is the main source of pollution of the river waters and not the back-surge from the sewage-contaminated Parvathy Puthanar canal as the authorities maintain.

Fed up with the lack of response from the government, activists of Seva Bharathi, a non-governmental organisation, last week took the initiative to identify an alternative source of potable water for the residents. They cleaned up a disused well near the ‘balimandapam’ on the Thiruvallam side and reconstructed the sides with local labour.

Seva Bharathi is mobilising funds to build an overhead tank and install a pump and filter plant with a network of pipes to service the island. “The major hurdle is to get electricity connection and meet the expenditure on power charge for the project. We are planning to approach the Corporation with a request to foot the bill,” Mr. Sreekumar says.

Thiruvallam ward councillor M.P. Lalitha Bai says the poor flow of water to the sump at the Thiruvallam pump house is the main reason for the water scarcity on the island.

“Thiruvallam is the end-of-the-line point of the Thiruvananthapuram water supply scheme. The pump house distributes water to the area under its jurisdiction by rotation. With increasing demand, the sump which used to take two hours to fill now takes eight to 10 hours. This has led to a shortage in all the areas in the Thiruvallam ward.”

Ms. Lalitha Bai says the Corporation has made arrangements to supply water on tanker lorries.

Moves are on to extend the Karamana-Madathunada pipeline to Thiruvallam to improve the water-supply situation in the affected areas.

The Corporation has taken steps to replace the old bridge linking the island to Thiruvallam with a metal structure capable of accommodating small vehicles. An amount of Rs. 20 lakh has been earmarked for the project.

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