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Rain revives hopes over Siruvani scheme
COIMBATORE: The water level has risen only by 17
cm in the Siruvani Dam, but hopes of a
turnaround in the Siruvani drinking water
situation seem to have been revived in the
Coimbatore Corporation by the latest spell of
rain at the dam. The Corporation said on
Wednesday that the dam recorded 20 cm rain,
after a long dry spell that threatened to push
the city and the suburbs dependent on the scheme
into scarcity. The water level rose to as much
as 22.70 ft as against the full reservoir level
of 67 ft. The Corporation has already
re-scheduled supply to once in four days and the
people in the suburbs are being provided with
water only once in ten days or even a fortnight.
Though the Corporation said there were
indications of the rain continuing or the
monsoon turning vigorous soon, there was no hope
of water overflowing from the dam. The
Corporation and the municipalities and town
panchayats in the suburbs feel comfortable only
if the water overflows around September. After
scarcity during the summers from 2000 to the
2003, heavy rain pounded the catchments and
filled up the dam in less than two months from
early June in 2004. The next three years were
good times for the Siruvani scheme. In 2008, the
South West Monsoon failed to rise to the
requirements of the scheme. The result: the city
and the suburbs were pushed towards scarcity
this year. Happy with the rain at the dam on
Wednesday, official sources in the Corporation
said the drawl from the dam was 48 million
liters a day. The available amount of water
would last for another 10 days with the 48 mld
supply. The Corporation hoped that the rain
would continue.
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Mayor R.
Venkatachalam called upon the people not to panic over
the water level in the dam. “Some persons are spreading
rumors that the Corporation is planning to cut supply to
once in 10 days. We will not do that. We will continue
to provide water once in four days,” he said. Some
residents’ associations had frantically called him up
after hearing these rumors. “They need not have any fear
of further cut in supply,” he said.
The Mayor pointed out that the rain over the last few
days in the catchments was an encouraging sign that the
situation would improve. Already, water was
flowing into the dam through one of the six falls from
the upper reaches of the Siruvani hills. If the
Mukthikulam in the upper reaches filled up, the entire
surplus would flow into the Siruvani Dam. But, that
would take some time as the monsoon was yet to turn
vigorous in Kerala where the dam and the catchments were
located.
