Water scarcity severe in city

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MARCH 24. Many parts of the city are experiencing water shortage setting off demands from various quarters for emergency water supply to these areas.

The current water shortage in places such as Poojappura, Mudavanmugal, Kaimanam, Karamana and Vattiyoorkavu indicates that the addition of 81mld(million litres per day) to the city's water supply in 1999 as part of the Interim Augmentation Scheme, was at best only a stop-gap arrangement. Even with a 200 mld water supply today, the Kerala Water Authority is struggling to reach water to all parts of the city.

Meanwhile the city Mayor, Prof. Chandra, has declared that within the next one year, drinking water would be reached to all houses of the city and that there would not be a single area in the city without water supply.

According to sources in the KWA, the present problem has been the result of a 30 per cent upswing in the consumption of water in the city during the past one month. ""This may be due to the fact that people are bathing more and drinking more water due to the heat. Whatever be the case, the result has been an increased flow to low-lying areas and a substantially reduced flow to elevated areas. Moreover, most of the houses now have sumps. So even slightly elevated areas will get water only after all these sumps are full,"" explains a KWA official. The situation in these elevated areas is fast moving towards a pre-1999 scenario, when water supply was sluggish at night and non-existent during the day time.

Officials of the KWA admit that a 200 mld water supply only meets the official projected demand of 1991. The official current demand is 218 mld, while the actual demand many be much more than that. This means that there is up to 20 mld shortage of water at source. The only hope for the city, according to the KWA, is the upcoming OECF scheme which will add another 41 mld to the city's water supply. Even so, the 241 mld supply will only meet the official projected demand of the city till 2006. Moreover, since the OECF scheme is yet to take off, KWA officials fear that when the scheme does get implemented, the city's demand for water would far outstrip the quantity available at source.

Sources in the KWA say that undersized mains in many parts of the city are the prime culprits causing depletion of water supply to at least some of the areas now affected. Again, since replacement of these mains is envisaged in the OECF scheme, the KWA has made no other plans for either replacing of augmenting these undersized mains. The KWA is however drawing comfort from the fact that the shortage of water is confined to certain areas only and not widespread as it was in the pre-1999 days.

Engineers feel that this situation may be rectified by resorting to throttling of certain high pressure lines thus inducing greater flow to elevated reservoirs like the one at Thirumala. However the alum-clogged distribution lines of the KWA will prove to be a major stumbling block for such moves.Adding to the existing problems of water supply is the inordinate increase in the use of piped water for non-domestic purposes. Construction activities in many parts of the city are said to be contributing to a higher consumption of piped water in those areas.

The demand for more drinking water from the five panchayats that have been newly annexed to the city has added a new dimension to the city's piped water supply situation. Though there is no possibly of the KWA extending its lines to these panchayats right away, there have been demands that the city corporation ferry water in tankers to these areas.

Enjoying saturation of water supply, in the midst of this shortage, is the Peroorkada distribution zone. As part of the its strategy to tackle the water shortage in the city which is expected to grow as the summer peaks, the KWA is planning an awareness campaign that will exhort the public to exercise restraint in the use of piped water and to desist from using drinking water for non-domestic purposes.

A common sight in the city.

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