Summer has come with shortage of drinking water supply to residents of a host of slums that fall within the Coimbatore Corporation's East Zone.
Residents of Thiruvalluvar Nagar, Gandhi Nagar, MGR Nagar, Kamaraj Nagar, Anna Nagar, Noyyal Nagar, Bannari Nagar, Housing Unit, Kalapatti, Vilankurichi, Cheranma Nagar get drinking water only once in 15 days, says Ward 61 Councillor S.M. Samy. The Corporation serves water to the areas using lorries. The civic body has four lorries and has hired another three for the purpose. The seven lorries make three to four trips a day, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., supplying around 30 pots water a family.
Mr. Samy says that at the given pace, a family gets water only once in 15 days and the 30 pots the Corporation supplies works out to only two pots a day a family, which is thoroughly inadequate. And as days pass by the water quality deteriorates.
P.A.M. Naheeb, a resident of Kamban Nagar, says that after the tenth day, the water quality deteriorates making it unfit for cooking purposes.
To fetch the water the residents, mostly daily wagers, will have to skip a day's work and thereby forego a day's wage. And, they are ready to abstain from work because not fetching water means going without water for a month, given the 15-day water supply cycle.
Mr. Samy says he has represented the matter to officials at all levels but no action has yet been taken.
As if compounding the problem, the residents of the aforementioned slums have been suffering disruption in groundwater supply as well.
Mr. Naheeb says that the disruption in water supply is on account of the damaged pipelines. The damage occurred when the Corporation undertook the underground drainage work and repaired the damaged roads.
He wants the Corporation to attend to the problem immediately so that the residents have adequate drinking water in the coming months.
