KOCHI: Triggering a wave of protests from parched throats in different parts of Ernakulam district, Ernakulam MLA Hibi Eden on Saturday staged a hunger strike demanding solving of drinking water shortage in areas under the Ernakulam Assembly constituency.
Mr Eden withdrew the stir around 10.20pm following a written assurance from additional chief secretary V. J. Kurien. He singled out the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) for creating the crisis and rallied hundreds of his supporters in front of the office of the Water Authority Chief Engineer (Central Circle) Kochi, to conduct the fast.
The worst hit areas in terms of drinking water are Cheranallore, Chittur, Kunnumpuram, Ponekkara, Pachalam, Thevara and Konthuruthy. Hibi’s strike began around 10 am after the final round of discussions with top KWA officials failed to secure any breakthrough. “Our repeated attempts to find a permanent solution to the issue have failed with senior KWA officials failing to constructively respond to it. They are engaged in delaying tactics by seeking more time to fix the issue,” Hibi said before launching the fast.
A large number of Congress and Youth Congress activists including Mayor Tony Chammany and Deputy Mayor B.Bhadra visited the venue and pledged solidarity to his fast. Repeated bids by KWA senior officials to persuade the MLA to withdraw the strike by promising to restore water supply at the earliest yielded no result.
KWA superintending engineer Jolly Thomas came to the venue and tried to persuade the MLA to give up the fast, promising that the issue would be solved as early as possible. “The strike will be withdrawn only after I get reports ensuring sufficient water supply through the KWA lines or tanker lorries from these areas,” the MLA said. He had the same reaction when a message from Water Resources Minister P J Joseph reached him promising action at the earliest. Last week, the MLA had warned of a hunger strike if the department failed to fix the issue in two days.
Meanwhiile Demand-supply gap widens as schemes yet to take off
Kochi city continues to face acute drinking water shortage with the demand-supply gap getting wider even as schemes like the JNnURM pipeline project devised years back to ease supply constraints yet to take off.
Even Kerala Water Authority (KWA) officials admit that the situation could turn worse with the slightest variation in production. “Currently we are producing 125 MLD for the city which has 1, 36, 000 connections. Given that each house has five members, we are producing the exact quantity. However, a 30 per cent loss during distribution means that the supply is below demand and tail-end areas like Cheranellor would be affected,” said a KWA official.
“We are now operating an additional motor set from the pump house at Thammanam and it would take at least ten to twelve days for the supply to stabilize,” said AK Ramani, Chief engineer, KWA. Also the treatment plant at Aluva could pump only 60 per cent of the usual 225 MLD drinking water during most part of the year.
Even at its full capacity, only about 280 MLD water is being pumped against the demand of 390 MLD in Ernakulam city and also on the outskirts. This, even as only 30 per cent enjoy the benefit of piped water in Kochi though the government aims to increase this to 75 per cent by 2018 and cent per cent by 2021.
To compound the woes, all the new water projects that have been mooted, including the Rs 201 JNnURM project to distribute 100 MLD water to Chellanam, Kumbalam, Maradu and Kumbalangi projects, have been delayed due to various reasons. Water to these areas is supplied from the Aluva treatment plant. KWA has to contend with frequent pipe bursts with the ambitious project to replace old premo pipes with new Ductile Iron pipes moving at a snail’s pace due to fund shortage.
