Port Blair, May 06: The Andaman Public Works Department (APWD) has clarified that the South Andaman region is experiencing water curtailment because in 2011, these Islands had experienced poor North East Monsoon.
Replying to a query of Bharatiya Janta Party’s A & N Unit, the Andaman PWD has said that the major water storage of South Andaman is Dhanikhari Dam, where quantum of storage depends on the rainfall during Monsoon i.e. South West Monsoon between May to September and North East Monsoon during November to December.
“Dhanikhari Dam caters to the needs for six months of regular supply. However, if the North East Monsoon fails, curtailment is resorted on the approval of the Administration. Similarly, this year also, due to poor North East monsoon the sufficient storage in Dam was not available which lead to curtailment with the prior approval of the Administration,” Kumar, the Assistant Engineer of APWD informed BJP in an official letter recently.
Adding to this the APWD has also clarified that keeping in view the above facts restoration of water supplying every alternate days is not possible at present. However, the reply did not go down well with BJP.
“Whether we had poor monsoon or not that can only be certified by the Indian Meteorological Department but question arises here that whether this curtailment is only for the general public or also for the heavy weight officials of the A & N Administration. This needs to be clarified by the APWD,” R Mohan the President of Andaman’s BJP unit told ‘Andaman Sheekha’ today.
