Canals of the Periyar Valley and Muvattupuzha Valley irrigation projects will be opened in the first week of January if the drinking water shortage along the eastern parts of the district intensifies. District Collector K. Mohammed Y. Safirulla gave a direction to this effect at a meeting of the District Development Committee held here on Saturday after MLAs Antony John and Eldho Abraham drew attention to the drying up of wells and the intensifying water shortage.
Efforts are being made to open the Periyar Valley project canals by January 5 and those of the Muvattupuzha Valley project by January 10. The District Collector has also instructed that the cleaning of the canals should be intensified ahead of their opening. Canals will be visited by a team led by the Collector on January 2 to take stock of the progress.
The MLAs called for deploying water tankers and setting up of tanks to distribute waters in grama panchayats experiencing acute water shortage. Panchayats should be able to divert water from where it is available to scarce areas. Local bodies should be allowed to meet the expenses towards this from their own funds. However, the Collector said that it needed a decision at the government-level. Like in the past year, GPS system will be used to prevent irregularities in the drinking water supply through water tankers.
Mr. Abraham accused local body secretaries of inaction despite the government order stating that local body secretaries could take a call on building permit applications on land outside the data bank as a result of which applications for construction of houses were piling up. He also called for a comprehensive project to stop the pollution of Muvattupuzha river, a prime drinking water source on which many projects were dependent.
Mr. John said over 800 applications under the government’s housing project were pending in Kuttampuzha panchayat in Kothamangalam for want of possession certificates. He said delayingapplications under the consideration of Muvattupuzha Revenue Divisional Officer should be avoided.
