People in cyclone-hit areas spending Rs 600-700 per hour to fill water tanks

NAGERCOIL: Rs 600 per hour to use a motor generator to fill water tank? Impossible, you might think. But the power-less Nagercoil is seeing this and more, as desperate residents look at help from all quarters to bring life back to normal. They shell out the extra charges to get drinking water and to charge their already-dead mobile phone batteries.

After Cyclone Ockhi left its devastating trail in the region, over 10 to 15 people have been found travelling in an auto carrying motor generator in villages with no power connection. But it comes with a cost. Paying extra is “essential” to get their services, but how much more is the real question.

The generator service is charged per hour. “We have been charged `20 to `25 to get our mobile phones fully charged in private shops. There is a long queue and we have to wait for hours. Thankfully, the power supply returned on Monday. The private shops that provided us with mobile chargers and power supply mostly run on generators. Most of these generators came from Thiruvananthapuram,” Rajendran (35), a Nagercoil resident, told Express.

Curiously, many people were not aware of the generator services provided by the district administration.
On the cost involved in generator services, a housewife from Kottar said they were charged `600 to `700 per hour to fill the water tank.

“The generator service is readily available. If any resident wants to pump water into the tank, they have to pay `300 to `400 for half-an-hour and `600 to `800 per hour. In half-an-hour, 400 litres of water can be stored in the tank,” said another resident Nithiravilai.Some residents of Kollemcode and other villages with well facilities were able to draw water for drinking purposes from their vicinity.On the drinking water front, District Collector Sajjansingh R Chavan claimed that things were getting back to normal.

“In the 52 wards under Nagercoil municipality, 20 wards were given power supply as of Sunday and 10 more by Monday. In two days, the entire district will get power supply. Steps are being taken to supply drinking water to the people in the district from Mukkadal by saving the pumped water using 500 Kv generator and supplying it to the people,” he said.

District Monitoring Officer T Rajendra Kumar inspected the relief camps in Thovalai circle regarding the facilities provided. During a press meet, officials said power supply has been restored in 228 of the 1,157 villages. Also, 29 panchayats were supplied with drinking water. The rehabilitation camps have come down to five from 29.

The ATMs have not been working following the cyclone devastation. With some of them becoming functional, long queues have become the order of the day. Many banks have provided portable ATMs for the people to withdraw money. More and more from villages are travelling to the main town to join the queues, hoping that things would only get better in the coming days.

Meanwhile, District Collector Sajjansingh R Chavan announced two-day holiday to educational institutions as power supply has to be restored in some regions.As many as 2,500 electricity board workers from other districts are in the field to help restore power supply to the region.

Seven superintendent engineers will be arriving in the district soon.While power supply was restored up to 60 per cent in Nagercoil, it was fully restored in Kuzhithurai. In other town panchayats, 80 per cent power supply was restored.