KOCHI: With the city facing water crisis frequently, storage of water for future is the need of the hour. Though many overhead tanks can be spotted across the city, they serve no purpose as they are left abandoned in most places. They are have either turned into temporary shelters for migrant labourers or spots to dump garbage. There are 12 elevated tanks in the city, some with a capacity as high as 22 lakh litres, six of which are totally abandoned.
There are four such tanks with capacity up to 20 lakh litres of water and two small tanks with 1.25-lakh litre capacity under Pallimukku sub-division. None of them are being used owing to the already existing water scarcity.
“We stopped pumping water to these tanks once we began supplying water through direct lines.
While there is not enough water even for drinking, storing water in these tanks is unthinkable,” said Assistant Executive Engineer Govindakumar. There are no overhead water tanks in Kaloor sub-division. When there is a sudden water crisis, there is no alternative to resolve the crisis immediately.
“If there is water scarcity, we close valves controlling the outflow of water to reduce consumption. We do not have any alternative in place to face a sudden crisis” said a KWA official in Kaloor.
Under the sub-division of Karuvelipady, there are six tanks, each in Fort Cochin, Mattanchery, Thoppumpady, Chellanam, Koppadam and Kumbalangi. The capacity of each tank ranges from 1 lakh to 22 lakh litres of water.
The water tank at Fort Kochi with a capacity of 14.5 lakh litres of water, Mattanchery (22), Thopumpady(18.2) and Kumbalangi(4.1) are the only tanks in the city that are filled once in a while. The others remain unused. Additionally, there are two groundwater tanks with a capacity of 80 lakh litres and 50 lakh litres under this sub-division.
The tanks were designed as a balancing reservoir. Water flows through domestic connections and when there is too much water with high pressure, it flows to these tanks. At present, pumping to these tanks have been completely stopped with KWA supplying water through direct lines. A sudden breakage of one of the pipelines would stop the supply and there are no other options to tackle the situation.
Collecting rain water in these tanks is not an option the authorities have considered. The dome-shaped surface of these tanks needs to be rebuilt to collect rain water. Also, the portability of rain water must be ensured, say the officials.
