The pending Water Supply Improvement Scheme (WSIS) of Trichy Corporation to supply potable water through pipelines for added corporation areas has received administrative sanction from the Public Works Department. The delay in getting permission from the Water Utilisation Committee of the state government comprising PWD officials was also delaying the work on drilling a collector well on the Cauvery bed. But the latest development will pave way for the civic body to commission the project by June 2019.Trichy Corporation in 2011 added Thiruverumbur town panchayat and four village panchayats namely Papakurichi, Ellakudi, Keelakalkandarkottai, and Alathur to its fold. The added area from ward 61 to 65 falling under Ariyamangalam and Ponmalai zones often witness water shortage during summer. Though portions of the five wards have pipelines (provided during panchayat tenure), the civic body said that the entire added area was not covered under the household water connections. To address the disparity, Trichy Corporation with a financial assistance from German Development Bank proposed a project to supply potable water in the area. Subsequently, the work at an estimated cost of Rs 63.7 crore was commenced in June 2016 and a water source point was identified near Melur in Srirangam. As PWD’s approval is mandatory for sourcing any quantum of water more than 1 MLD (Million Litres per Day) from the river bed, the civic body for the past six months was awaiting PWD’s nod to commence the civil work of the collector well, despite about 80% of the project was completed.Meanwhile, in a meeting of the Water Utilisation Committee recently, PWD gave permission to drill a collector well near Melur. "As the clearance from PWD was obtained, with the available funds we would commence the work on the collector well at the earliest," Corporation commissioner N Ravichandran said. The process, once the work started, would take 1 to 1.5 years to prepare the source point for commissioning. On completion of the scheme, at least 90,000 people in five wards would get water daily.While a small portion of the added area receives potable water through pipes so far, the major localities are supplied water through trucks that fill as many as 167 water tanks. Even as the demand of five wards in added area stands at 15 MLD, the proposed project could supply a maximum of 27 MLD water.

Stay updated with all the Latest Trichy headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.