The government has decided to focus on projects that could be completed within one year to combat the drinking water shortage in the State.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Saturday asked Kerala Water Authority (KWA) officials to hand over the list of such projects to the Irrigation Minister. He was inaugurating a district-level drought review meeting here. The Irrigation Minister will take a final decision on the list, to be received from 14 districts, after consultation with the people’s representatives, he said.
Load-shedding
“It has been decided to synchronise the timing of load-shedding in places housing the pumping houses and treatment plants operated by KWA as the difference in timing had created problems for drinking water distribution”, he said. The Finance Minister, K.M. Mani, asked the MLAs to identify drinking water projects that could be completed on a war footing. “Money will not be a problem to take up such projects,” he said. The KWA officials said work on 39 drinking water projects would be completed within the next one week. The water authority has identified 57 projects to be taken up soon. Out of these, 18 have already been commissioned. Administrative sanction has been given to 20 permanent check dams in the district. Steps have been taken to undertake maintenance work on 51 temporary check dams. Also, five new water sources have been identified in the district.
Water quality
The KWA has been asked to complete the testing process for water purity within 24 hours, if the local bodies sought their help to ascertain the quality of water being taken from private sources.
The meeting also decided to hold review meetings at the constituency level in the district. The first of these would be held on Sunday at Kottayam by Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan.
