Thiruvananthapuram: Concern over poor water quality

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The beneficiaries of Vellayani drinking water scheme have raised complaints that they are getting contaminated and bad odour water. According to the beneficiaries, water hyacinths have taken over majority of the lake area and degraded leaves are polluting the drinking water.
The lake provides drinking water to more than 50,000 families of Venganoor, Kalliyoor, Vizhinjam and Thiruvallom. Although the lake is being cleaned on every Sunday by a few volunteers, the wild growth of the plant can only be removed with the assistance of modern machinery.
Meanwhile, lack of regulations in and around the lake is severely affecting the livelihood of traditional fishermen and farmers.
“In order to increase the storage capacity of the lake, the authority has sanctioned the project to remove water hyacinths from the waterbody and to deepen the depth. But the delay in starting the work is making things more difficult,” said Venganoor panchayat president R S Sreekumar.
The fishermen community said that uncontrolled growth of water hyacinths in the lake surface has resisted the penetration of sunlight and oxygen, resulting in the disappearance of many ethnic fish varieties like ‘Cheru’.
The situations of the farmers are no different.
According to the convener of Padasekhara Samithi Koliyoor Gopi, around 700 farmer families of the area are suffering as they have given a total of 217 acres of land for the scheme. Although the government had given an assurance in 2016 that the private properties which are currently inside the drinking water scheme will be given fair compensation, the farmers have not received a penny after completing more than five years.
Assistant engineer of irrigation department Suresh R said the drinking water is being supplied to the consumers after proper filtration.
The lake cleaning and depth deepening works would start as soon as they receive the order, he added.