The Directorate of Town Panchayats has taken up a total of 282 works in 26 town panchayats in Vellore and Tiruvannamalai districts at a cost of `5.1 crore to create new water sources and revive the existing water sources to tackle the drinking water problem during the summer.
Officials in the department said that over 95 per cent of the works were completed in the two districts under the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) scheme.
Under the scheme, the State Government had sanctioned `4.60 crore for the two districts. The works commenced at the end of March this year. The works included sinking of new borewells and installing of mini-power pumps along with 1,000-litre capacity tank; connecting newly erected power pumps with existing overhead tanks (OHTs); extending the pipelines to cover more area; converting the hand pumps into mini-power pumps; and desilting and deepening of wells, said a senior official.
In Vellore, a total of 143 works to the tune of `2.46 crore had been taken under the scheme in 16 town panchayats. “Except six works, all the remaining works have been completed in Vellore. The aim of the scheme is to end the drinking water problem during summer by sinking new borewells and rejuvenating the existing water sources,” said the official. He added that the department has completed 133 out of 139 works in 10 town panchayats in Tiruvannamalai district. The total cost of the works was `2.14 crore.
He further added that apart from this, `49 lakh and `5.50 lakh had been sanctioned from the general fund for Vellore and Tiruvannamalai districts respectively for similar kind of works.