Residents, mostly women, blocked the Vaniyambadi - Tirupattur Main Road at Ramanaickenpatti village near Vaniyambadi in Tirupattur on Saturday, demanding supply of regular water.
The residents said that many houses in Ooru Gounder Vattam, one of the 14 hamlets that form Ramanaickenpatti village, have been getting irregular supply of water for many weeks due to power outages. With soaring temperature, water level in borewells and farm wells in the village has gone several feet down. It has made residents to completely depend on water supplied by the panchayat. “Many borewells have become dry due to searing heat for the past few weeks. Water supplied by the panchayat is erratic. We can’t afford private tanker lorries,” said S. Kannammal, a resident.
Around 11 a.m, a group of residents sat in the middle of the road, demanding resumption of supply of water by the civic body to all households. Traffic was hit on the stretch. Based on alert, Thimmampet police rushed to the spot and pacified the agitated residents. “Many times, we have to walk to the neighbouring hamlets, around three kms away, to fetch a few pots of water for consumption. We have been complaining to local panchayat officials and block development officers ,” said V. Perumal, a resident.
Panchayat officials said that at present, the village has 900 households with around 6,000 persons. Seven deep borewells in the village and Palar river are major water sources for the village. Water is pumped from these sources to the 12 OHTs in the village every day. Each overhead tank has a capacity of 10,000 litres, 30,000 litres, and 1 lakh litres depending on the population in the area.
Officials added that irregular supply of water to Ooru Gounder Vattam hamlet in the village was mainly due to the faults in the power cables of Tangedco. Most of the power cables are low-lying and were unable to withstand high voltage. Also, the hamlet is dotted with coconut groves. The coconut branches also damage the power cables.
Unlike earlier where uninterrupted power supply was given to panchayats for water distribution, panchayats can now only draw water from borewells to OHTs for 12 hours in a day . As a result, pumping water to OHTs remains a challenge. “We have requested local Tangedco officials (Thimmampet) to strengthen the power cables for easy filling up of OHTs,” said a block development officer.
