Tirunelveli Mayor inspects drinking water pumping stations as demand goes up in summer goes up

Mayor G. Ramakrishnan inspects drinking water supply from Tamirabharani river, addresses scarcity issues, plans new schemes for future.

As demand for drinking water supply has increased substantially with the onset of summer, Mayor G. Ramakrishnan visited a couple of pumping stations supplying drinking water from the Tamirabharani river on Wednesday to ascertain the quantity being pumped from the river and realized at the overhead tanks.

The Corporation is supplying 91 litres of water a day per person upon getting 48 million liters a day (MLD) from six drinking water schemes even as the demand stands at 70.50 MLD. The Ariyanayagipuram drinking water project is being executed to add another 35 MLD. However, water scarcity prevails in some areas due to mismanagement and the wastage caused by poor quality drinking water pipes laid in several parts of the Corporation. Hence, drinking water supply management in this urban civic body would be problematic during summer as the demand goes up.

The Corporation, which is operating six drinking water schemes with 15 headworks to supply water to the residents living within the limits of the urban civic body, has planned to execute one more drinking water scheme by sinking infiltration wells in Tamirabharani river at Murappanaadu to supply drinking water to the wards in the peripheral areas of the Corporation.

Since the demand for drinking water in another 25 years would grow further, Murappanaadu drinking water scheme is to be executed on an outlay of ₹40 crore and it has been designed for providing drinking water round-the-clock to the residents of seven peripheral wards.

As demand for drinking water would usually go up in the summer every year, Mr. Ramakrishnan visited the drinking water pumping stations at Manappadaiveedu and Thirumalaikozhunthurpuram to personally ascertain quantity of water being pumped from these two projects and the actual quantity realized at the overhead tanks connected to these schemes.

Expressing satisfaction over the quantity being pumped from the Tamirabharani river, the Mayor asked the officials to either repair or replace the ruptured drinking water pipes to improve the drinking water supply to the residents.

Superintending Engineer Kannan accompanied the Mayor during the inspection.