The fall in groundwater level in Kurichi and Kuniamuthur has got the city’s water managers worried.
At these two places, which constitute most of the Coimbatore Corporation’s South Zone, the water level has gone down from 8m to 10m.
In other places in the city it has gone deeper by at least 5m, said sources in the civic body.
This decrease in the groundwater level was a direct consequence of the Kurichi tank being dry, said M. Perumalsamy, Chairman, South Zone.
This has forced the Coimbatore Corporation to dig more bore wells, deepen existing ones and push down the pipes to access water in those bore wells were the water level had gone down.
Kurichi residents said that the corporation’s bore wells right next to the Kurichi Tank too had gone dry.
The corporation was now able to supply water only once in six days as against the earlier schedule of two days.
The corporation supplied groundwater to only those added areas where the then local bodies supplied groundwater from bore wells. In the old city area, the corporation did not supply groundwater.
The residents were forced to buy water, spending between Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 1,500 a lorry load, said Umesh Marudachalam, a resident, adding that even the price of the water supplied in lorry had gone up.
Mr. Perumalsamy said that the corporation would soon start using the bore wells it had sunk, he said.
The civic body had spent Rs. 1.25 crore for the purpose. It had spent on increasing the bore well motor power from seven-and-half HP to 10 HP, he said.
In anticipation of trouble on panel boards, the corporation had kept ready 20 such boards for immediate replacements, if necessary.
