Public well in Tambaram not cleaned

The Tambaram municipality consists of 39 wards. The public well in Ranganathapuram served four of these wards.

However, residents of wards 4, 5, 7 and 10 are now suffering as the public well has not been cleaned for more than 15 years by the local body officials.

According to officials, the residents were supplied 20,000 litres of water twice a day from the well until a few years ago.

Besides, the water drawn from the well was supplied to few small-scale hotels functioning near by and a public health centre as well. But residents complain that the quality of water has deteriorated over the past few years. The water has become so bad that residents said they are not using it for cooking and drinking purposes.

The reason which they cite for this situation is the lack of maintenance. They claimed that they had asked the municipality officials to clean the well on several occasions but no action had been taken yet.

K Thirupathi, a resident, said, “The water was very useful for us. We asked the officials to clean it up many times as the need for well water is more during summer season. But they were not ready to do it. If they can’t maintain the well they should at least allow us to maintain it.” When contacted Tambaram Municipal Engineer Ravichandran told DTNext that he was not even aware of a well in Ranganathapuram.

“We will inspect the well soon and then take all the necessary steps to clean the water body,” he said.