With various political parties championing the issue, the acute drinking water problem here has once again come to the fore. The CPI(M) has announced a waylaying of vehicular traffic in the town and remote interiors of the taluk on Friday. They are pressing for immediate implementation of the Thalayazham drinking water project for which. the LDF government had sanctioned Rs.26 crore. Meanwhile, Irrigation Minister P.J. Joseph has called for a review meeting of the various projects in February. Interestingly, the agitation by the CPI(M) falls on the same day on which the local MLA, K. Ajith of the CPI, had called a review meeting of the project. The CPI(M) agitation will be focused in five main centres –Vaikom town, Udayanapuram, TV Puram, Thalayazham and Vechoor. The agitation will begin at 10 a.m., party leaders said. Though the area borders on one of the largest fresh water bodies in the country, Vaikom had always been in acute shortage of clean drinking water. In fact, implementation of major drinking water projects was one of the major election promises of political parties in the past many election campaigns. The first major initiative in providing safe drinking water for the area was charted out in 2002, but it did not move forward much. However, in 2008, the then LDF government streamlined the scheme and launched the Rs.26 crore Thalayazham Drinking Water Scheme.