Water woes: More power for local bodies

KANNUR: The state government is considering the proposal to handover the power to decide on supply of drinking water to the local bodies.
This was announced by minister for rural development and planning K C Joseph at a news conference after attending a review meeting at Collectorate chamber here. He said the government would take a decision in this regard in the next cabinet meeting.
The government would organize a meeting at all the 140 assembly constituencies on March 17 and 18, which would be attended by MLAs and representatives of local bodies, to discuss the drinking water problems. After this, another meeting would be held at Thiruvanathapuram on March 19.
The final decision for distributing drinking water through tankers would be taken after this meeting, Joseph added.
He said the government had already received reports from panchayats that the scarcity of water was serious than the previous years.
He said the government would consider the demand from the local bodies that panchayat plan fund may be utilized for the distribution of drinking water.
MLAs A P Abdullakutty, C Krishnan, K K Narayanan and people representatives attended the review meeting.