Desperate in Coimbatore: As Siruvani water stops, hospital defers surgeries
- Supply of water from the Siruvani Reservoir stopped before Pongal.
- Surgeries are being postponed at CMCH as it gets less than one-fifth of its daily water requirement.
- The State Government on January 16 sought ₹39,565 crore from the Centre.
FollowSince it started providing water to Coimbatore in 1929, the Siruvani Reservoir has faithfully met the city’s needs even during drought. But after the Pongal weekend, officials announced that they had not received water from the reservoir in a week.
Speaking to the Times of India, a city corporation official explained that water supply to the city had never stopped even in the summer months of April and May as the reservoir used the “dead storage” supply till the rains arrived. The city corporation has appealed to residents to use water judiciously.
The Siruvani water shortage led to the postponement of several surgeries at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH), one of the city’s main medical centres in the run-up to Pongal. Hospital officials said that they are only conducting emergency surgeries and are postponing “elective” procedures.
CMCH has a daily requirement of around 5 lakh litres of water, with a minimum need for 3 lakh litres; hospital officials told the New Indian Express that CMCH is not getting even 1 lakh litres of water currently. CMCH has nine borewells, of which three have dried up. The hospital’s plight has been made worse by the lack of progress on the building of a sewage treatment plant, which has an expected cost of ₹1.5 crore.
Read also: Tamil Nadu's drought dries up K'Taka's Cauvery hopes
In an indication of the severity of the drought situation, the Tamil Nadu Government on January 16 sought ₹39,565 crore from the Central Government for a variety of relief measures: compensating affected farmers, ensuring drinking water supply, providing adequate fodder and generating employment. In a recent report, The Hindu revealed that of 16,682 revenue villages in the State, 13,305 have been identified as being drought affected.
