A war over water is brewing as residents of Ambalur village near Vaniyambadi have locked horns with officials of Jolarpet municipality, which is trying to tap additional water from the Palar river bed near the village.
The municipality had already sunk five deep bore wells and two open wells on the Palar bed and are extracting around ten lakh litres of water per day. The municipality has been trying to sink additional bore wells on the river bed for the past one month, which has been stiffly opposed by Ambalur villagers.
Jamuna Thiagarajan, a resident of the village who is leading the agitation met the official team comprising Tirupattur tahsildhar Dharmalingam, Vaniyambadi tahsildhar Geetharani and Jolarpet commissioner Gopu, which visited the village on Thursday to convene a special meeting over the issue.
She noted that over one crore litres of water was being extracted from the Palar bed near Ambalur village through 200 bore wells, and water was being supplied to Tirupattur, Jolarpet, Natrampalli, Udayendram and Pernambut towns, which is about 60 km from the village, and over 50 villages on the way. She said the upper Palar region had been declared an over-exploited area and wondered how the State was going against the Central notification. She said such large scale extraction of water had adversely affected the ground water table in and around the village. “We will not allow any more exploitation of water sources from the village,” she said, adding that the villagers would not hesitate to seek legal remedy if the administration went ahead with sinking additional bore wells.
Another resident Asokan said,“We have been supporting so many towns and villages all these years when we had enough water, but now we will not tolerate any more exploitation,” he noted.
Soundararajan, president of the Tamilzhaga Vivasayigal Sangam (Natrampalli union) wanted the State to immediately implement the Thenpennai-Palar link project t. Panchayat president R Jayanthi said since the residents were not inclined to allow the installation of bore wells, the panchayat would go with their views.
The officials said to meet the growing demand from the 30,000 plus population, it was expected that sinking of more bore wells would meet the water requirement. Tahsildhar Dharmalingam said the matter would be reported to higher authorities, who would decide the further course of action.