With 95% works under the ₹484.45 crore Dedicated Water Supply Scheme completed and water supply commenced to a few areas in the Corporation limits, the scheme is expected to be commissioned by the end of March or in the first week of April after which all the 60 wards would be receiving protected drinking water regularly.
Under the State Annual Action Plan (SAAP) 2015-16 of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the scheme is being implemented with Government of India’s share of ₹242.23 crore, State Government – ₹96.89 core and ₹145.33 crore from the Smart City funds. The scheme aims at supplying 81.10 million litres (MLD) of water a day to all the wards in the Corporation limits and is being executed by the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board.
Water is drawn from the River Cauvery at Varadanallur village at Uratchikottai in Bhavani and pumped to the treatment plant with 120 MLD capacity after which clean water is collected in a water sump of 52 lakh litre capacity. Later, water is pumped to sumps at Suriyampalayam and VOC Park (1.48 crore litre capacity) from where it will be distributed to reservoirs and later to households and commercial establishments. While the existing 46 service reservoirs are to be used, of the proposed 21 reservoirs, works were completed for 18 reservoirs while three reservoirs will be completed by the end of February.
Of the total 731.82 km of distribution network, work is in progress for 80 km while house service connection is yet to be given for 40,000 houses against the proposed 1.30 lakh new house service connections. Water was recently pumped to the two sumps to check leakages and other errors that were attended by the officials.
A senior TWAD Board engineer said that water is being supplied to a few areas in Suriyampalayam that would be extended to other areas in the coming days. He said that all the works would be completed by March and 81.10 MLD of water would be supplied to the present population of 5.35 lakh, 114.75 MLD of water to seven lakh population in 2032 and 147.69 MLD of water to 9.05 lakh population in 2047. The scheme intends to supply 135 litre per capita per day to the population.
Work order was issued on June 10, 2017 to Larson and Toubro Limited, Chennai and work commenced on June 3, 2017, and was scheduled to be completed by June, 2019. However, due to various factors, work got delayed and would take another two months for completion.
Corporation Commissioner M. Elangovan told The Hindu that works are nearing completion and after the final report from the TWAD Board, the date of commissioning would be decided. “Since it is a major scheme, the Chief Minister would be inaugurating the scheme and the date would be decided soon,” he added.
