Coimbatore Corporation will get an additional 15 million litres a day (MLD) from the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board to tide over water shortage in the next few months.
The corporation and TWAD Board arrived at the decision at a meeting they had at the latter’s office here on Friday. The board will supply the water from the Pilloor reservoir. The 15 MLD will take the total quantity of water the Board supplies to the corporation to 50 MLD.
The 35 MLD the board supplies at present helps the corporation to cater to Thudiyalur, Chinna Vedampatti, Saravanampatti, and other added areas in the north zone.
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But this additional quantity is unlikely to help the city’s water managers, as the quantity of water supplied from the Siruvani reservoir has come to a nought.
In the last four days, the city has not supplied water from Siruvani because the water level has dipped below the last in-take valve.
The water position at present is more than 10 ft below the dead storage level.
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The board officials in Coimbatore have talked to their Kerala counterparts to tap the remaining water in the reservoir. The board expects a favourable reply, the sources say.
If the Kerala Government grants permission, the board will pump water from the storage area to the fourth valve for water supply to the city. The board has estimated that such an arrangement will help the city get 30 MLD till May.
The last time, the city faced such a situation and the Board drew water from below the dead storage level was in 2013.
MDMK’s State youth wing secretary V. Eswaran has urged the Kerala Government to consider Tamil Nadu’s request to pump water.
In a release here, he said that the water will help meet the city’s needs, and among those who would stand to benefit would be people who had migrated from Kerala.
By rising above geographical and linguistic divide, the Kerala Government should take a considerate view, he said and added that if it failed to do so, the party would stage a protest on January 22.