The Executive Engineer of Malampuzha Irrigation Project John Pudussery has said that the release of 400 cubic feet per second water (cusecs) from Malampuzha reservoir to Bharathapuzha will not affect drinking water supply to Palakkad Municipality, eight adjoining Panchayats and to the Kanjikode-Pudussery-Walayar industrial belt.
Talking to `The Hindu’ here on Wednesday Mr. Pudussery said that ``the Dam has now got a storage of 85.41 million meter cube water. To provide drinking water up to July 31 we require 40 million meter cube
water only.’’
``So even if there is a delay in the monsoon rain we are safe in having enough storage of drinking water for the people of Palakkad town and the adjoining areas,’’ he said.
He said that every day one million cubic meter cube water is released from Malampuzha reservoir to the river. It is done to meet the acute drinking water shortage in Ottapalam and Shoranur areas.
The water is released from Tuesday night as ordered by the Minister for Water Resources M.K. Premachandran on a petition from the Ottapalam M.L.A, M. Hamsa, he said.
The one million meter cube water released per day will take four days to reach Ottapalam area of Bharathapuzha.
This along with the summer rains received in the District on Tuesday will help to provide water to the drinking water supply sources in the river to some extent, he said.
He said during the last monsoon the Dam reached the Full Reservoir Level. So there is enough storage of water for meeting the drinking water needs and there is no need for any anxiety on that count, he said.
He said that since the district faced an unprecedented high temperature of over 42 degree Celsius this time most of its rivers including Bharathapuzha got almost dried up in many stretched even as early as in February-March as against April-May in previous years.
So water is released from Malampuzha to help the people living on the banks of Bharathapuzha in Ottapalam and Shoranur areas, he said.
Mr. Pudussery said that ``every summer there used to be demand to release water from Malampuzha to the river. Last year also there was such a demand. But we could not release water because there was storage to meet only the drinking water needs of Palakkad town and the adjacent panchayats.’’
But in the year 2007 water was released from Malampuzha for eight days to Bharathapuzha to meet the drought situation then, he said.
