Committee formed to solve water woes

KOCHI: In an effort to find a solution to city's water woes, the district administration has decided to constitute a coordination committee to complete drinking water projects on a war footing. The committee will draw up both short-term and long-term plans to ensure that people in all parts of the district get potable water.

While evaluating the progress of various drinking water projects, the district administration found that lack of a monitoring agency and coordination among various departments are the root causes for the inordinate delays affecting various projects. "Ernakulam district has many water sources. But many parts of the district are already reeling under acute water shortage," said district collector P I Sheik Pareeth. "While studying causes of many projects getting delayed, we felt the need of a body to monitor such projects. That's why we decided to constitute a coordination committee for the purpose,'' he said.

The committee will have representatives of various departments, including Kerala Water Authority (KWA) and agencies such as Goshree Islands Development Authority (GIDA) and Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA. As a first step, the committee, chaired by the collector, will solve the drinking water problems of Vypeen island in three months.

"We have already identified the cause for drinking water woes of Vypeen. As part of the effort to solve the issue, we have started constructing a one-and-a-half kilometre long pipeline in the island," he said. "We have designed long-term plans for solving the drinking water issues of the island as well," Pareeth said. Projects such as the Maradu drinking water scheme, which will supply 100 million litres a day (MLD), and the HUDCO extension project to west Kochi area have been delayed inordinately due to lack of coordination between various departments.

The Maradu project didn't take off, initially, following a controversy between KWA and PWD over digging the road for laying the pipeline. Though the PWD gave in later, it was the turn of locals to raise protests against digging up the road causing further delays. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) also began protests against digging up the highway. The coordination committee would take the initiative to solve such issues, the collector said.