Kalapatti residents upset over disruption in water supply

Residents in more than 10 colonies in the Kalapatti Town Panchayat are at the edge of their endurance limit, after having put up with the disruption of supply of drinking water in their house connections.

Road works on the road leading to the airport have damaged a line that brought water from an overhead tank at Brindavan Nagar to their colonies, the residents said.

As a result, nearly 1,000 houses in Madhusudanan Nagar (Phases I and II), Kumaraswamy Nagar, Arangaswamy Layout, Azhagu Nagar, Padmanabha Nagar, Shastri Nagar, Sowbagya Nagar (A, B and C blocks), Ramaswamy Nagar and Lakshmibai Nagar have gone without water supply in their individual connections, B. Rajagopal, a resident of Madhusudanan Nagar said on Friday.

President of a residents' welfare association of a cluster of four affected colonies G. Narayanaswamy said, “We have gone without house connection supply for close to a month. We have repeatedly represented our problem to the town panchayat. Each time, the authorities have asked us to wait for some more days for new lines.”

The affected colonies were in Ward 12. Its councillor K. Manian said the water line was damaged only about a fortnight ago.

The town panchayat had provided four taps on the main road as a temporary measure to overcome the problem.

“The residents will get water from these lines 24 hours till the damaged main line from the overhead tank is replaced,” he said.

C.V. Vasanthakumar, a resident of Madhusudanan Nagar Phase I, said most of the house owners were pensioners.

These aged persons found it difficult to walk more than half-a-km to the taps to fetch water. Workers engaged to fetch water charge Rs.3 a pot, he said further.

Mr. Narayanaswamy, a former Chief Educational Officer, said the line restoration work must be taken up soon to end the agony of the residents.

The councillor, however, said the road expansion and storm water drain work, in view of the World Classical Tamil Conference, would have to be completed first.

“We have bought a new pipe to replace the damaged line. But, this can be done only if the storm water drain work is completed by another Government agency that is involved in the road expansion,” he said.

The residents said they planned to submit a petition to the District Collector and the authorities of the town panchayat as yet another effort to have the line restoration process speeded up.