The Hindu : Many areas hit by flaws in distribution network

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 06, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

Many areas hit by flaws in distribution network

By G. Mahadevan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM May 5. With the Peppara reservoir recording a water level of 99ft above mean sea level (MSL) on Monday, the city is expected to see through this summer without a major hitch on the water supply front.

According to official estimates, the current level of water at Peppara is sufficient to supply water the city for about two months. Since the first summer showers are expected less than a month from now, officials of the Kerala Water Authority rule out any possibility of a disruption in water supply to the city due to shortage of water at source.

The city's current rate of drawal is 202 million litres a day (mld). Of this 72 mld comes from the old filtering plant, 84 mld from the new one, 10 mld from the plant at PTP and 36 mld from the Wellington water works plant.

The situation on the distribution front is, however, not all that rosy. Even with the first phase of the Interim Augmentation Scheme supplying an additional 84 mld to the city, the KWA is not able to ensure round-the-clock water supply to all parts of the city.

The demand for water in the city has shot up so much that it has far exceeded the officially estimated demand during the launch phase of the augmentation scheme. The time-worn practice of curtailing water to the low-lying zones of the city during night time to ensure that water reaches the reservoirs servicing the elevated areas in the city continues even today.

This, coupled with the city's outdated water distribution pipeline network, has resulted in disruption of water supply during night time to various areas in the city such as Statue, Pulimoodu and Ayurveda College and Pattom, to name a few.

According to the KWA officials, private operators are capitalising on the flaws in the distribution system by retailing drinking water at high prices to hospitals and hotels which are not able to store enough water for their daily use through the normal water connection.

``Water which is purchased from the KWA at the rate of Rs. 24 per 1,000 litres is sold for more than three or four times that rate in the open market,'' says an official.

The KWA is learnt to be toying with the idea of hiking the rate being charged from private operators so that the Water Authority is able to generate more income from the sale of water.

``The private operators are learnt to be charging hefty amounts from the bulk purchasers, so a hike on the part of the KWA is justified. Even if the private operators hike the charges further, the bulk purchases are being made by institutions which can afford to pay,'' argues a senior KWA official.

It is also pointed out that the present system of regulating water supply to parts of the city can be done away with only after the commissioning of the second phase of the interim augmentation scheme which will add another 84 mld to the city's water supply pool.

The installation of three new reservoirs, one each at Manacaud, Thirumala and at Manvila, and the upgradation of the distribution pipeline network as part of the second phase is also expected to have a positive impact on the situation.

However, it is also possible that when the second phase, which is officially predicted to take care of the city's water requirements till the year 2010, is finally commissioned the city's actual water requirement may be risen far higher than the supply potential.

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