People, who have applied for new water connection, will start getting them from September 23, Municipal Administration and Water Supply Minister S.P. Velumani said here on Sunday.
Coimbatore Corporation, municipalities, town panchayats and village panchayats that had frozen issuing new connections following a dip in water level in reservoirs and poor monsoon would start releasing the connections as the water level was good and recent rain had led to increase in storage level in tanks.
As of September 22, the Corporation had 2,904 applications, municipalities 136, town panchayats 10,275 and village panchayats 58,000.
The local bodies would issue the connections in a transparent manner and should ensure elimination of the role of middlemen. The applicants should pay only that charges demanded by the local body concerned and nothing more.
The Minister also said that the Corporation would soon come up with an online system for applying for water connection and processing applications to bring in transparency.
The local bodies had also instructed licensed plumbers to not cut roads that were laid less than five years ago, but take the pipeline beneath the surface. And, if they did, the local bodies would cancel their licence.
On roads that were more than five years old, the plumbers, after completing the work, should ensure that the surface was level.
The Collector would monitor the progress of issuing water connections in municipalities, town panchayats and village panchayats and the Commissioner for Coimbatore Corporation, the Minister said and added that he had also asked them to form field-level teams to ensure that the plumbers complied with the instructions in giving the connections.
In response to a question on Suez India Pvt. Ltd.’s work in Coimbatore, the Minister replied that he was only repeating what he had earlier said in the Assembly – that the Corporation had entrusted the work of only distributing water. The Corporation had retained the power to fix or alter water consumption charges.
He appealed to people to not go by rumours and get misled.
