The Coimbatore Corporation supplies Selvapuram residents Siruvani water from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. every fourth or fifth day. But the residents can start collecting water only after 5 p.m. as from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the water is grey and smells of sewage.
This has been the case for over a month now, complains M. Kala, a resident of Raju Nagar in Ward 76. Left with little choice, she stores the water, but does not use it for cooking. Every second or third day she buys water cans for drinking and cooking.
“If I use the Corporation-supplied water, the stink does not leave the utensils even after I wash them,” she complains.
Not many can buy water like Ms. Kala does. S. Hema uses the Corporation-supplied Siruvani water as she cannot afford better. Or, sometimes, she uses the ground water that the Corporation supplies for non-cooking purposes. The ground water seems safer than the Siruvani water, she adds.
The same smelly water is also also supplied to Muthusamy Colony and other areas in the neighbourhood, complains T.V. Gopi, another resident. The matter has been taken up with the Corporation and other officials but nothing much has happened to set it right.
Sources in the Coimbatore Corporation say that the pipeline could have developed a leak and sewage might have entered it. Or the pipelines could have been damaged when the civic body took up the work to rise the level of the storm water drains that runs close to the water supply pipeline.
The residents have not taken it up with them thus far, say the sources but add that they will attend to the problem at the earliest.
