Rs. 27 lakh a month is what the Coimbatore Corporation will spend in the coming months to ensure steady supply of water to Kurichi, Kuniamuthur and areas in southern fringes of the city.
The civic body will use the money to buy diesel to run the hired generators that will power the water supply motors, which pump water to the areas.
Corporation Commissioner T.K. Ponnusamy says the civic body will require around 750 litres a day to run six generators, which, during power cut, will help the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board run one of the two motors at each of the six pumping or booster stations.
Assistant Executive Engineer, TWAD Board, S. Sampathkumar says that during power supply the Board will run both the motors at the six places to ensure cent per cent supply and during power cut will run one of the two motors to provide 50 per cent of the promised supply.
As per the Aliyar Combined Drinking Water Scheme proposal, the Board ought to supply 4.33 million litres a day to Kurichi, 3.27 million litres to Kuniamuthur and 0.44 million litres a day to Kinathukadavu.
In reality, the Board, due to power cut, is able to supply less than one million litres a day to Kurichi and Kuniamuthur.
Mr. Sampathkumar says that unlike other combined water supply schemes, Aliyar scheme is more affected because it requires simultaneous power supply at all the aforementioned pumping or booster stations.
Power cut at any of the power station will cause one tank to overflow and the next to remain dry, for the scheme is a relay pumping system.
To ensure steady water supply to Kurichi and Kuniamuthur and overcome the power cut, Corporation officials convened a meeting with TWAD Board and Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation officials to mitigate the impact of power cut.
At the meeting headed by Mayor S.M. Velusamy, the officials decided to step up water supply and provide succour to the residents by going in for generators to power the motors. This was less than five days ago.
Mr. Velusamy says that the objective of the Corporation in arranging for the meeting was to provide an immediate solution to the residents, who should not suffer for want of water in summer.
Installing generators was decided as the short-term solution.
As for long-term, the Corporation has approached the TANGEDCO to provide direct power supply from feeders to bypass power cut.
The latter has agreed to explore the possibility and come up with a proposal.
On Friday, the Corporation and the TWAD Board installed the generators at the six stations. Agriculture Minister S. Damodaran switched on the generator to mark start of the efforts the civic body has taken.
Mr. Velusamy, Mr. Ponnusamy, Deputy Commissioner, Coimbatore Corporation, S. Sivarasu were present along with TWAD Board engineers V.T. Nagarajan, Mr. Sampathkumar and Assistant Engineer C. Selvakumar.
