: Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s promise to ensure supply of potable water from the Malampuzha reservoir to the water-starved regions of Vadakarapathy grama panchayat in Chittur taluk by laying new pipelines for about 15 km has evoked mixed reaction.
While a section of the local community has hailed it as the realisation of their long-pending demand for quality drinking water, others have termed it a ploy to divert attention from the earlier promised extension of the Right Bank Canal of the Parambikulam-Aliyar Project (PAP) to Eruthempathy, Vadakarapathy and Kozhinjampara grama panchayats. Ground water is contaminated with fluoride in all these panchayats.
Even during the monsoon, tanker lorries distribute drinking water to these panchayats. However, the Chief Minister’s promise, made during his recent mass contact programme, had no mention of the water needs of Eruthempathy and Kozhinjampra panchayats. Besides, the Malampuzha Dam Protection Samithy and farmers in the vicinity of the irrigation dam are opposed to the taking of 50 lakh litres of water daily from the dam to Vadakarapathy.
Resentment is growing in Kozhinjampara and Eruthempathy as the government is seen to be using the new project as an excuse for not extending the PAP canal, which can be a lasting solution to the region’s drinking water needs.
The failure of the State government to fulfil the two-decade-old promise to extend the canal had led to the formation of a movement.
Perhaps, this could have also prompted voters to choose NOTA (None of the Above) on electronic voting machines during elections to spoil the chances of the Congress, which
hitherto had a brute majority in the region. In the last Lok Sabha elections alone, 10,600 votes were registered under the NOTA option in the Chittur Assembly constituency, which houses the three panchayats. This helped Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate P.K. Biju to retain his Alathur constituency.
Critics now term the fresh move as a strategy to protect the political future of sitting MLA K Achuthan.
The move assumes significance in the backdrop of the threat from the Church-backed Right Bank Canal Vilipunarvu Kulu (RBC awareness committee) to defeat Mr. Achuthan by using the NOTA option. The committee has already organised two mass rallies and three awareness programmes supporting NOTA. Antony Paul Raj of the committee told The Hindu that the region’s water needs would be addressed permanently only by extending the canal.
The government had blamed administrative hurdles for the failure to implement the Rs.70-crore canal extension project, but the people attribute the delay to the MLA’s favouritism for his support base on the banks of the Left Bank Canal.
The Chief Minister also promised a purification centre at Menonpara and an overhead tank at Chunnambukalthod for the new drinking water scheme with an initial outlay of Rs. 50 lakh.
