The Tamilnadu Water Supply and Drainage Board has adopted a new method to prevent the wastage of water at public fountains in rural areas.
Normally, water that overflows from the pots at public fountains (street taps) would stagnate and the entire area turns slushy. Though the wasted water seeps into the ground, it seldom penetrates deep into the soil as it evaporates quickly.
Soakpits
To keep the area dry, the TWAD Board has decided to create soak pits and connect it with the platform on which the public fountains have been set up.
“This will help save the area from becoming slushy apart from recharging ground water”, Executive Engineer (Rural Water Supply), TWAD Board, Kancheepuram, K.Arumugam, said.
Equal supply in starting and tail-end areas
In order to ensure equitable water supply to both starting and tail-end areas, the height of columns on which overhead tanks are constructed has been revised.
While the columns supporting the OHTs with a capacity of less than 30,000 litres will have a height of 7.5 metres, those with a higher capacity will have 12 metres height.
The Board has executed 80 water supply augmentation projects at a cost of Rs. 32.38 crores.
As many as 21 check dam construction projects have been taken up at a cost of Rs. 2.67 crores, drinking water supply projects in 26 government schools in the district at a cost of Rs. 1.06 crores and water supply facility to toilets in 65 schools at Rs. 26 lakhs in 2014-15, he said.
