The residents of 60 Wards of the Coimbatore Corporation have good news from the civic body: they will soon get drinking water on a daily basis.
For, the Union Government approved on Monday the corporation’s Rs.-451.60 crore scheme, said G. Latha, Corporation Commissioner.
She told The Hindu that the corporation planned to use the money to replace the water supply pipelines in the city as they were old and unfit to meet the current needs. The old city area has water supply lines for 1,375km.
The funding for the project would be along the lines of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission ones — 50 per cent from the Union Government, 20 per cent from the State Government and the rest from the urban local body that is the beneficiary — in this case, the Coimbatore Corporation.
Ms. Latha said that the Coimbatore Corporation would go in for soft loan to meet its share of the project — Rs. 135.48 crore, as the amount was huge and the corporation could not afford it without external help. Once the corporation replaced the pipelines — the project was estimated to take 29 months from the date of the start of work — it would supply 135 litres per capita a day. And that supply would be scientific.
The corporation would automate the entire supply system. The valves would be automated and the water flow would be computerised. The water pressure management too would be automatic.
Likewise, the corporation would install automatic meters to record water consumption. In the implementation of the scheme, the corporation would also lay a feeder main supply line for 105km, construct 29 storage reservoirs, and two treatment plants.
But the sources of the water supply would remain the same — the Siruvani water supply scheme and the Dedicated Pilloor Drinking Water Supply Scheme or Pilloor-II. From the two water supply schemes the corporation got around 250 million litres a day.
For the added areas, the corporation had started a similar project — to replace the pipelines and lay new ones to supply drinking water. The project was aimed at making the added areas on a par with the old city area in terms of water supply.
