Monsoon or summer, villagers in the Upper Kuttanad region are left to bear with the bane of drinking water scarcity, despite being surrounded by water round the year. Thanks to lack of Governmental initiatives coupled with the unscientific infra-structure development initiatives in the region the past several years.
Well water is polluted and villagers solely depend on the drinking water supply by Kerala Water Authority for their drinking water needs.
Ironically, the KWA water supply to many parts of Upper Kuttanad is strictly regulated and restricted to twice a week, leaving the hapless villagers a desperate lot.
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The lean flow through the waterlines due to low pressure is another major problem facing the people in the interior reaches of Upper Kuttanad.
Villagers have to fetch portable water in country boats from far-off places is a common scene in the Upper Kuttanad villages of Kadapra, Niranom, Peringara and Nedumpram. Water still remains a priced commodity to the people residing in this low-lying lands.
However, people residing in various settlement colonies and in small houses built on the bunds surrounding the paddy fields use the raw water collected from the polluted canals for their domestic chores, leaving them exposed to various epidemic threats. Some even dig pits in the paddy fields to collect water for their domestic use.
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According to Mr Sam Eapen, Upper Kuttanad Nel-karshaka Samiti president and former Peringara panchayat president, though the grama panchayat had handed over 12 cents of land to KWA for constructing a storage tank at an estimated cost of Rs 1 crore as part of a project to supply drinking water to the interior reaches of the panchayat five years ago, the project is yet to take off due to the alleged lackadaisical attitude of the authorities concerned.
It is noteworthy that Dr M.S. Swaminathan Commission has proposed a planned development of the Upper Kuttanad region too as part of the Centrally-sponsored Kuttanad Package.