The Maradu water supply augmentation project for the city may be delayed further.
A ministerial-level meeting had decided the other day to get the project completed on a war footing by taking some extreme measures, though senior officials are tight-lipped about fixing a date for it.
A high-level meeting of the Water Resources Department officials held here last week had reviewed the status of the work that had been going on under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission for the last seven years. It is learnt that the officials had been sceptical about how the work can get commissioned within a month.
The pace of the work dealing with the inter-connections at 23 points involving at least two railway line crossings had been proceeding at such a slow pace that the officials were finding it difficult to fix a date.
However, on a positive note, 14 million litres a day (mld) of water from the Maradu plant is likely to enter city supply at the Thammanam sump by the end of the month. Ongoing work to connect the city sump was nearing completion, said officials of the Kerala Water Authority (KWA). The quantity will be a great boost to the city water supply, which is in short supply against the demand.
The Maradu plant with an installed capacity of 100 mld had a soft launch last December and is now producing about 40 mld of water. Maradu municipality is provided 20 mld, and 7 mld goes to Kumbalam. Chellanam and Kumbalanghi are getting 13 mld of water through the old pipeline connection.
The Navy and the Port area are to get a major share of 24-26 mld from the project. The interconnections works are delaying supply to these major areas.
