Rains fail to end Thiruvananthapuram water woes

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Despite the south west monsoon going on in full swing, people residing at Belhaven Gardens are still not getting drinking water. The geriatric population is fed up of buying drinking water at Rs 1,800 per tanker lorry and sometimes more. Ever since the Kerala Water Authority came out with the water rationing system on April 18, several areas like Belhaven Gardens, Jawahar Nagar and adjoining areas like Vellayambalam Jawahar Lane, Madankovil Lane and RNP Lane have been the most affected.

On May 22, DC had reported how a few residents of Belhaven Gardens had moved out from their homes and moved to their relatives’ elsewhere in the city where drinking water was available. A few residents living in the low lying areas of Belhaven Gardens are currently getting water at least for two hours a day. But people like 74-year-old Kamala Padmanabhan are unlucky. She told DC that her bore well had dried up and she was solely dependent on the KWA pipe line connection.

“I had given up the old water connection and got a new one, after paying money, hoping that I would get uninterrupted water supply. But unfortunately, I have been getting water once a week only, and that too for hardly a couple of hours”, said Kamala, wife of Late V. Padmanabhan, Indian Audit and Accounts Service. She also said that her daughter, Akhila Gowrisankar, had been visiting KWA frequently to ensure they provided water in tanker lorries.  But unfortunately that can be stored in buckets and not in storage tanks. A top KWA official told DC that the residents in Belhaven Gardens and adjoining areas had been affected due to less pressure in the Thirumala tank. “Though Peppara dam which supplies water to city dwellers has adequate water level (96.5 metre), adequate pressure to pump water from the Thirumala station is not there. Hopefully in the coming days, the problem should be rectified”, said a top KWA official.