No new water connections now

The Tiruchirapalli City Corporation has decided to suspend sanction of new drinking water connections in the city temporarily given the depleting yield from the Cauvery, the city’s main water source.

All applications for new water connections will be processed but the connections will be given only after June 1. The quantum of water supplied to the city from the Cauvery has fallen to 84 million litres a day (MLD) from the normal 96 MLD.

With a long summer ahead, the corporation officials are pulling all stops to ensure that the current level of water supply is maintained over the next 45 to 60 days.

The civic body has sunk five additional deep borewells around the Kambarasampettai Collector Well to supplement the water supplied to the city. But with the Cauvery remaining dry since December, the yield from most of the water schemes has started coming down drastically.

Corporation officials are pinning their hopes on the new Rs. 221.42-crore drinking water augmentation scheme currently being executed in the city and hope to supply water from it to areas facing short supply by the end of this month. The officials had previously said that some parts of the city would get water supply from the new scheme by the end of March. Some parts of Woraiyur and Vayalur Road in the city are getting water from the scheme on a trial basis.

The delay in getting the distribution lines ready from many of the 37 overhead tanks being constructed under the new scheme is giving some anxious moments to elected representatives. But corporation officials are planning to pump water to some parts of the city by linking the new pumping mains with the existing ones. “We have already laid pumping mains for a stretch of about 77 km and trial runs are under way, which could normally take about three to four months. But we are planning to begin supply to 23 OHTs up to Ponmalaipatti from the new scheme by the end of this month,” said corporation commissioner V.P. Thandapani. The new scheme has its source at the Coleroon and already all the three collector wells are ready. The corporation has started pumping water from the first collector well of the scheme a couple of months ago to feed a few tanks in Woraiyur. It would initially draw about 60 million litres a day (MLD) from the new scheme and the additional supply is expected to tide over the short supply in at least some of parts of the city by next month.

Meanwhile, the civic body has appealed to the city residents to use drinking water judiciously and warned people against sucking water from the distribution mains by using motor pumps unauthorisedly. Water connections to offenders would be disconnected and criminal action initiated, Mr. Thandapani added.