With mercury levels rising, most hill stations in Tamil Nadu, including Ooty, Coonoor, Yercaud and Yelagiri, are facing one of the worst spells of acute water shortage they have seen yet.
In Ooty, also known as the queen of hill stations, areas including Khandal, Valley View, Mel Kodappamund, and residential areas perched on cliffs have been witnessing disruption in water supply, with the municipality supplying water to the residents only once in every seven or 10 days by tanker lorries. The main water source to this town with a population of 90,000 is from the Parsons Valley Dam, and according to the municipality commissioner (in-charge), V. Prabhakaran, “with current levels, water supply can be maintained till the end of April.” In this small town, a dedicated helpline for residents to get in touch with the municipality and ask for water has been set up.
At Coonoor, residents get water once in 20 days and in some pockets, it is once a week. Rajesh Kumar James, secretary, Citizen’s Forum of Coonoor, said: “In many parts of Coonoor, people are buying water. For 1,000 litres, consumers are paying anywhere between ₹600 and ₹1,000.”
Mr. Rajesh said that public toilets had been shut because of water shortage. Coonoor gets water from the Ralliah Dam.
A visit to the dam showed that it is slowly drying up. Apart from this, there are 11 other sources of water. A resident near the Ralliah Dam said that 10 years ago, the dam was full but the water level was slowly depleting due to monsoon failure.
M.Ramaswamy, the ex-chairman of Coonoor Municipal Council, said, “Fifty years back the population was lesser and today it has gone up multi-fold. With no rains, it gets difficult to serve the population. The dams and other water bodies need to be expanded and more infrastructure for storing water should be created, else the situation will worsen,” he said and added that the quality of water is also poor.
According to Keystone Foundation, which has analysed the water situation in this district, in the Nilgiris, which is classified as a safe zone based on the amount of water recharged annually as opposed to the amount of groundwater abstracted, there are issues of falling water levels and wells running dry on the back of monsoon failure. The streams and rivers, some of which are perennial, are used as sewage drain and are not used as a source of water.
Ullas Menon, secretary-general, The United Planters Association of Southern India (UPASI), said: “For the tea industry in the Nilgiris, 2016 was a bad year – there was a 40 per cent dip in production due to monsoon failure and water crisis.”
For residents of Yercaud, a hill station in Salem, water has been a perennial issue that remains unattended to. Here, the panchayat union draws water from the wells and supplies it to the people in the town once in five days. The situation remains same during most of the year while water is supplied once in 10 to 15 days during summer. Water is not supplied to interior hamlets and the tribal people here have to depend on wells or fetch water from other places.
Long-pending demand
At Yercaud, dredging the lake has been a long-pending demand. Creation of small ponds to store water would help solve the water needs during summer.
Steps have not been taken so far to implement any projects to solve the water crisis.
Yelagiri Hills, a popular tourism destination, comprises 14 villages. Residents said the water situation was not grim as of now.“As of now, the situation is manageable in all 14 villages. We depend on the existing wells and borewells for water,” a resident of Kottur said.
There are over 70 hotels on the hills, and they too, are managing with the existing water sources as there was no crowd now, he added. “When the inflow of tourists increases, hoteliers purchase water from elsewhere on the hills,” he added. A resident of Athanvoor said the residents will have to wait to see if the situation changes during peak summer.
In all hill stations, people whom The Hindu spoke to lamented that the councillors, MLAs, local authorities are not seized of the water shortage issue from a long-term perspective. “They are not bothered that this issue if not attended to now, this will become a serious crisis in the near future,” said Mr. James.
(Additional reporting by Serena Josephine,
and S.P. Saravanan)
