Labour shortage hits water supply scheme in Erode

Efforts on to mobilise workers from various parts of the State

Work in progress for giving house service connections under the dedicated water supply scheme in Erode on Saturday.

Return of migrant workers to their native places and difficulty in mobilising workers from other States have led to delay in expediting the ₹484.45-crore Dedicated Water Supply Scheme that proposed to supply 81.10 million litres per day of water to the Erode Corporation.

Work began in 2017 and was scheduled to be completed by 2019. However, various factors delayed the completion of works and Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD) Board, that is implementing the scheme, was given time till October to complete all works.

Currently, service connections to 98,000 houses of the total 1.05 lakh houses have been completed while construction of four reservoirs of the total 21 reservoirs is in progress.

The contractor, Larsen and Toubro, Chennai, had deployed around 900 workers of whom over 95% of the workforce was from north India. A senior engineer of TWAD Board told

The Hindu that due to COVID-19 lockdown, most of them had returned to their native and efforts to mobilise workforce from Andhra Pradesh and other States also did not yield results.

Efforts are on to mobilise workforce from various parts of the State after which ongoing works would be expedited, he added. The engineer said that testing of water pipelines in each area is in progress and all the works would be completed by the end of October.

Raw water will be drawn from River Cauvery at Varadanallur village at Uratchikottai in Bhavani and treated and pumped to two sumps in the city. It will then be distributed to all the houses and commercial establishments in the 60 wards in the corporation limits.