THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a bid to provide clean drinking water to the public, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation on Tuesday passed a bylaw enabling the customers to book water online from Kerala Water Authority-run filling stations.
The customers can now place orders for a minimum of 500 litres of water and above online. The bylaw will also put an end to the exploitation of public by private tanker operators, who charge exorbitant amounts from the customers. Since the customers will be directly paying their user fee, it will inevitably put an end to the complaints of over-charging.
As per the new bylaw, only licensed tanker operators will be allowed to fetch water from the filling stations and provide it to the customers. The tankers have to meet specified fitness and hygienic standards in order to get license from the corporation. They will be issued digital passes that have to be shown at the filling stations. The tankers will be fitted with GPS devices and flow metres and both will be linked to the corporation’s software. The tankers ferrying drinking water will be painted blue. The unauthorised tankers distributing water in the city limits will be penalized, read the bylaw.
‘Subhojanam’ scheme
The corporation has also passed a bylaw on ‘Subhojanam’ scheme to ensure that only quality food is being sold in its limits. The scheme envisages imparting training to hotel employees and conducting their medical check ups. Those who are found to be medically fit will only be given identity cards, which is mandatory for working in hotels and eateries.