With reservoirs in the district having just enough water left to supply over the next three weeks, District Collector S. Venkatesapathy has called for intensification of measures to address drinking water scarcity.
He was speaking at a meeting held on Wednesday regarding the drought situation. While the summer showers in parts of the district on the day raised hopes for improvement of the storage condition, the rain received so far has been far from sufficient to alleviate worries.
One of the measures discussed at the meeting include the installation of water tanks across the district, with tahsildars asked to submit reports after identifying suitable locations for them in the taluks concerned.
However, while the district authorities had applied for 760 water tanks, only 350 have been sanctioned, raising concerns about the effectiveness of the measure.
Nonetheless, the tahsildars have been asked to install the tanks on a warfooting as soon as they are made available.
The tanks are to be set up on stands constructed by the Nirmithi Kendram, for which purpose a sum of ₹25,000 has been allocated.
In the worst case scenario, arrangements will also be made to collect and distribute water from ponds and clay and stone quarries after purifying it through micro filtering and chlorination. The quarries, also to be identified by tahsildars, will be taken over by the Department of Disaster Management following the submission of their reports.
Measures are also to be taken to provide water directly to those tribal, coastal, hilly and areas where people of Scheduled Caste community live and where water is at present provided through kiosks.
Tahsildars and additional tahsildars are required to visit water scarce areas in persons and submit reports on them to the Collector. They have also been instructed to give Stop Memos in areas where water is being illegally distributed, and to confiscate the tankers used for this.
