With the yield from the drinking water pumping stations on the Cauvery dropping drastically, the new drinking water supply augmentation scheme with its source at the Coleroon has proved to be a saviour this summer.
The sharp fall in Cauvery's water yield has forced the Tiruchirapalli City Corporation to resort to providing alternate day supply to the residents served by the Woraiyur, Marakkadai and Virugupettai overhead water tanks in nearly a dozen wards in the city for the past 10 days.
The corporation has resorted to this measure without any public notification.
Although some newly added areas in the city were getting supply on only alternate days, the corporation has been forced to resort to the move in the heart of the city now.
The combined yield from the six drinking water pumping stations on the Cauvery riverbed has dipped to 30 to 35 million litres a day (MLD). In normal times, these pumping stations provided the bulk of the water supply to the city, accounting for 80 out of the 90 MLD supplied to the city. Even the couple of spells of rain in the past week has not helped matters.
The corporation has started pumping water from all the three collector wells of the drinking water supply augmentation scheme, which is yet to be fully commissioned.
“We have got dedicated power connections and are pumping about 40 MLD from the three collector wells and this has helped us maintain the supply,” corporation commissioner V.P. Thandapani told The Hindu . With this, the city is now getting a supply of 70 to 75 MLD.
The five additional borewells sunk recently by the corporation on the Cauvery riverbed at Kambarasampettai had helped to a certain extent.
However, there have been complaints of short supply in several parts of the city and 20 tanker-lorries have been deployed to supply water to the affected areas.
There are complaints that the Coleroon water is discoloured. Enquiries revealed that the civic officials are now proposing to treat the water before supply.
