Udhagamandalam: With just a few weeks left for the curtain to go up on the 2017 summer tourist season in this popular vacation destination,a question, “will it be successful and different or will it turn out to be just another season to forget”,has started doing the rounds.

High on the list of concerns now is the lack of rains and the rapidly depleting storage in the drinking water reservoirs in various parts of the district particularly Ooty and Coonoor.

With both the monsoons having played truant in 2016 and the district yet to benefit from the pre Summer showers which it normally receives the situation on the water front has become something to watch closely for both the public and the authorities. Judicious distribution of the available water has become the order of the day. Even some of the residential schools have resorted to regulation of water.

While the water level at the main Parsons Valley Hydel Reservoir near here is now about 15 feet below its capacity of 58 feet,there is about 1.5 feet of water in the Marliamund reservoir and about 3 feet in the Tiger Hill reservpoir. In all the other reservoirs also the water level is dangerously low. With the available water the civic administration will have to meet the requirements the local people and the tourists. In the 36 wards of Ooty over 80 thousand people were residing. Of the 24 or 25 lakh tourists visiting Ooty every year the majority turn up during the Summer.

Long considered as the event which heralds the busy period of the summer tourist season here, the annual horse races of the Madras Race Club (MRC) is set to start around the middle of April.

The high altitude race course spread over about 55 acres in the heart of the town is now wearing a parched look. It needs water desperately to improve the underfoot conditions and also quench the thirst of the hundreds of horses which will start arriving soon. The management is taking steps to sink a borewell but even that will not be enough to meet its needs. This year,it is learnt that efforts are being made to showcase the races as a major tourist attraction.

Even at the Government Botanical Garden which is getting ready to host the Annual Flower Show, the most popular event of the season, water shortage is posing a problem.

Hoteliers and those in the travel sector are keeping their fingers crossed hoping that the towns will receive a few good showers before the commencement of the season.