Pernambut residents struggle with water woes

The president of Pernambut consumers welfare and protection association T Basheeruddin said, “The town is home to 55,000 people who are reeling under water scarcity and will suffer more when summer peaks in a month.” He added that the present shortage was due to the accumulation of various faults by local body officials.

Officials sources accepted that they did not pay attention to the existing water sources because of provisions through the Hogenekkal combined drinking water supply scheme. This resulted in 80 of the 140 bore wells becoming impaired.

But, though the Hogenekkal scheme was to provide 20 lakh litres daily, the local body gets only 9 lakh litres due to lack of a ground level reservoir to store the water. Faulty planning resulted in this not being considered when the town was brought into the scheme’s ambit, sources revealed.

senior officials said they were helpless due to election model code of conduct as no new construction like the ground level reservoir, could be taken up. Lack of local body representatives for over two years is another reason why no action was taken to meet the crisis earlier. Pernambut comes under Gudiyattam (reserved) constituency as its MLA Jayanthi Padmanabhan suffered disqualification for joining the TTV Dinakaran’s AMMK. “But, VIPs including ruling party functionaries do not suffer as they are provided water by tankers” said Sangeetha, a housewife.

When asked why tanker supply was not resorted to, to overcome the shortage, officials said most of the tractors were under repair and hence could not be used.

Now, locals order water through private tankers which charge Rs 400 per 1,000 litres, drawing water from Masigam, Sivanagiri, Anandagiri and Perangal villages about 12 kilometres from the town.

Alternatively, people can also buy a pot of water for Rs 5 from them.

Meanwhile, residents also said that water supplied by the town once a fortnight develops a thin oily film on the surface which when consumed leads to stomach problems.