Drinking
water will be supplied to Vellore Corporation and the surrounding village
panchayats from the second week of April, according to R. Nanthagopal,
Collector of Vellore District.
Water
will be pumped from the Cauvery River near Chekkanur Barrage downstream of
Mettur Dam and treated at a plant at Thottilpatti village near Mettur in Salem
district under the Rs.1,295-crore Combined Drinking Water Supply Scheme (CWSS).
The Collector, along with School Education Minister K.C. Veeramani, inspected
the pipeline, from which Cauvery water flowed from the pipeline into the Palar
River, at Venkatapuram, in Pudu Vasur village panchayat near here on Saturday.
Talking
to newspersons, Mr. Nanthagopal said that the trial run of CWSS commenced on
March 26, with the raw water reaching Kodiyur near Jolarpet. “During the trial
run, we are cleaning the overhead tanks and the pipelines which have become
dirty and silted up. Once the trial run with raw water is over, treated water
would be released into the pipelines from Tirupattur up to Vellore, benefiting
the people from the second week of April,” he said.
The
Collector said that when completed, the CWSS would benefit 15 lakh persons in
Vellore Corporation, 11 municipalities (Tirupattur, Jolarpet, Vaniyambadi,
Ambur, Pernambut, Gudiyatham, Melvisharam, Arcot, Ranipet, Walajapet and
Arakkonam), five town panchayats (Natrampalli, Udayendram, Alangayam, Odugathur
and Pallikonda) and 944 rural habitations in 14 panchayat unions.
Replying
to a question, Mr. Nanthagopal said that treated water would be released only
up to Vellore in the second week of April.
After
cleaning the tanks and pipelines, water would be released to areas between
Vellore and Arakkonam 10 days after the release in Vellore, possibly before the
end of April, he said.
Mr.
Veeramani said people of Tirupattur, Ambur and Vaniyambadi have already started
using the water released under CWSS after the trial run commenced last week.
Agitation
Asked
about the agitation proposed to be conducted by the DMK in Vellore under the
president ship of DMK Treasurer M.K. Stalin on Monday to demand the expeditious
completion of the works connected with the CWSS, the Minister said that the
proposed agitation was a ‘cheap publicity stunt’ of the DMK.
