The Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board has taken steps to improve the quality of Bhavani water.
Executive Engineer, TWAD Board, P. Gopalakrishnan, said that the Board had dug a fresh well, right on the river bed, to draw cleaner water. The new well, about 160 m upstream from the old well, was 2.8 m deep, said Executive Engineer, TWAD Board, P. Gurusamy. The engineering team under him dug the new well.
The Board commenced the work in the third week of July this year and completed by September 17. It spent close to Rs. 20 lakh to dig the new well and lay new pipelines.
The work was fraught with danger because the water flow increased and decreased depending on the release of water from the Pilloor Dam into the river by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO).
“An hour or one-and-a-half hours after the TANGEDCO opened the shutters at the dam for power generation, we would stop work and resume only two hours after they downed the shutters. To know the timings, our engineers were in constant touch with the TANGEDCO officials and also a local tea shop owner,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said. “As and when the TANGEDCO sounded the alarm, the tea shop owner would ring us up. Soon thereafter we would pull our earthmovers and other machinery and men to a safe distance,” Mr. Gurusamy added.
The Board constructed earthen bunds to divert the flow of water away from the well area. “The challenge was to divert the water away from the new well but take it close to the old well so that the Board continued to supply water to the two local bodies,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said.
It was not a new scheme where the Board could afford to work at will. It had to keep in mind the fact that it was only modification of an existing scheme and that water supply ought not be affected.
Under the Bhavani Combined Water Supply Scheme, the Board supplies close to 12 million litres a day (mld) to the two local bodies.
“The design capacity is only for 11.5 mld and the Board has to supply only 8.64 mld but it is supplying more – 110 per cent – to meet the increased demand,” he said.
K. Kanakaraju, Secretary, Thendral Nagar Residents' Association, said that for the past couple of days the area had received good quality water and that they were satisfied with it. The residents recently staged a protest against the quality of water they received.
