Administrators in the city’s suburban local bodies are working on precautionary measures to deal with the acute water shortage that is affecting these areas.
The State government through the Department of Municipal Administration and Water Supply has allotted considerable amount of money to ensure that Tambaram and Pallavaram – two of the biggest municipalities in the city’s southern suburbs — tide over the water crisis.
In Tambaram Municipality, additional borewells have been sunk to ensure that the shortfall in supply is made up. After connecting infiltration wells at Villiambakkam with Melacheri near Wallajahbad on Palar river in Kancheepuram district, they were able to get additional water. The municipality has been maintaining about 12 million litres a day (mld) of supply a day.
In Pallavaram, officials said deep borewells were sunk in seven places, through which they were able to tap 20 lakh litres of water a day. Apart from this, Metrowater supplies around 30 lakh litres and the local body gets around 25 lakh litres a day through the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board.
There are a few disruptions in water supply from the sources and if these were arrested, they could supply water once in four days. “We have requested Metrowater to supply more during the summer months,” they added.
Officials said 119 works were taken up by nine municipalities in Kancheepuram district with a grant of Rs. 1.2 crore for implementing State Disaster Response Fund works. An additional Rs. 5.5 crore has been mobilised from municipal funds. The officials stated the works were taken up based on the financial position of the urban local bodies.
