Water bottles a few residents of R.K. Naidu Layout, off Thadagam Road, in Ward 13 hold under sunlight clearly show black residual particles.
The bottle contains Siruvani water the Coimbatore Corporation supplies and the black particles, they claim, is the proof for their allegation that the water is contaminated.
The residents want the water to be smelt. “It stinks of sewage,” says M. Latha, a resident. “It is also oily.”
The residents, about 100 of them, have been getting the contaminated water for the past month or so, complains K. Banumathi, president of the residents’ welfare association.
The residents took up the issue with the Corporation officials at the local level and also the senior officials but the solution they provided lasted for only a couple of days.
The water supplied on the third day returned to its contaminated stage, says S. Muthumanickam, the association secretary. Following repeated complaints, the Corporation workers have been digging repeatedly at various places in the area to find the place of contamination but were unable to arrive at the right spot.
Pointing to a sewage-filled pit, Ms. Banumathi says that this was the latest in the Corporation’s efforts to provide a solution but nothing seems to have come of it.
As a result of the contamination, the residents are forced to depend on the water they buy to even brush teeth. “Who will want to wash mouth with sewage,” asks V. Padmavathy, also a resident.
The Corporation officials say they will work on the issue at the earliest to provide a solution.