Title - Water scarcity hits Thalassery railway station

Gets just 6,000 litres of water a day; requires 50,000 litres

The daily revenue of the railway station here is anything around Rs.5.5 lakh and the number of commuters from here is around 10,000 on a daily basis. Yet, inadequacies plague this ‘A’ class station that has been reeling under many shortcomings, the latest being acute water scarcity.A well in the railway land almost half a km away has been the only source of water for the passengers and the Railway employees and their families put up in nearly 20 quarters around the station. Weeks have passed since the water from the well has dried up and the staff and the public are a worried lot as monsoon is still more than a month away. While the total consumption of water here is more than 50,000 litres a day, a mere 6,000 litres of water is carried in tankers here every day, scarcely meeting the huge demand.The officials at Palakkad Division had been informed about the trouble that was anticipated much earlier, said T.N. Babu Raveendran, former national vice-president, IMA, and chairman of the Citizens’ Committee for Development of Thalassery Railway Station.

Deepening of the existing well or digging another well were suggested as solutions to the acute water shortage but nothing had been done yet, he said. The reliability of water carried in tankers to be used for drinking purpose was also doubtful, he added, pointing out that an outbreak of diseases could not be overlooked with little water remaining for use at the comfort stations.

The station had two overhead water tanks till some time ago, one at the second platform with a capacity of 10,000 litres and a bigger one with 80,000-litre capacity near the new bus stand. As part of the work undertaken for double-lining of tracks in 2000, the bigger tank was demolished with a plan to replace it with a higher-capacity one. The 10,000-litre tank was upgraded to store 15,000 litres then. But nothing further was done in this direction, putting people to extreme hardships, says V.V. Gopalakrishnan, former station manager.

The railway quarters residents run their households with little water while for passengers who reach here in the night and are bound to far-off regions like Wayanad, spending a night at the station is worse than a nightmare with no water for even basic requirements.