Come summer, every urban local body has to gear itself up to overcome the water crisis and mobilise as many financial resources as possible.
With the monsoon failing last year, the urban local bodies – nine Municipalities and 17 Town Panchayats including those in the city’s western and southern suburbs – prepared the list of works to augment water supply needs in their respective areas and forwarded this to the State Government for its consent as well as for financial assistance, officials told The Hindu.
While Municipalities have prepared an action plan to execute 119 works at a total cost of Rs. 6.79 crore, Town Panchayats planned to take up 144 works at a cost of Rs. 2.37 crore. The State government announced a sum of Rs. 5 crore as drought relief assistance to the Kancheepuram district and the entire amount has been given to 13 Block Development Offices for executing drilling, deepening and sinking additional bore wells and replacement of water supply lines in 633 village panchayats.
At the same time, a meagre sum of Rs. 1.2 crore and Rs. 50 lakh has been allotted to the Municipalities and Town Panchayats respectively as a special fund for drought relief works. Thus, most of the Municipalities and Town Panchayats, which were spending their general fund towards payment of salaries and other expenses, are now scouting for assistance from the District Collector Special Relief Fund, local area development funds of elected representatives and other sources to execute the planned works.
