Coonoor residents have said that the municipality should not become complacent despite rise in water level in Raliah Dam, the main source of water to the hill station.
Lamenting that for about two years water supply has been erratic and substantially lower than the requirement of 90 litres per head per day, a resident, Raminder Chowdhary of the One Earth Foundation told The Hindu that the people had been subjected to a great deal of hardship.
He attributed it to a lack of long term planning, shoddy implementation of ongoing water supply and storage projects and total apathy of the civic authorities towards the suffering of the people.
The main water sources for Coonoor Municipal area were the Raliah and Bandumi dams and 10 stream sources, Bellattimattam, Brooklands, Gymkhana, Karadipallam, Adar, Highfield, Upputhotti, Old Forest, Engledane and Attadi.
He regretted that there were structural imbalances in the storage and supply.
The civic authorities should come out with a status report on the water availability from various sources, planned daily distribution and the actual commissioning dates of water supply schemes in progress and those proposed.
Instead of blaming the weather for the growing woes of the residents of Coonoor, the municipality should evolve ways to alleviate their sufferings.
