Putting on hold its approval for the draft Detailed Project Report on the ₹162.60-crore water supply scheme for the city, the Mangaluru City Corporation council has decided to convene a special meeting to discuss the draft before giving the green signal.
The scheme, Jalasiri, will be implemented by the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) for the civic body with loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
It is the second stage of the water supply project to be taken up in the city with ADB loan. The first stage was taken up a decade ago.
According to the corporation, the scheme has been designed keeping in mind the requirement of water supply in the city till 2046. The Detailed Project Report has been prepared by a Kolkata-based consultant hired by the KUIDFC.
M. Shashidhar Hegde, whip in the council, said the council withheld its approval in the meeting of the council on August 31 because some councillors said there were some drawbacks in the stage I project.
For example, though overhead tanks were constructed at Akash Bhavan, water was not reaching it even after pumping. Hence, the draft report of stage II would have to be discussed after the presentation by the KUIDFC officials.
The special meeting of the council would be called within a fortnight, where the KUIDFC and its project consultants would make the presentation, he said.
According to the draft prepared by the consultant, an old jack well at Thumbe vented dam built in 1956 would be replaced with associated facilities like pump sets, transformers and other machineries and equipment. Its water lifting capacity would be doubled from 10 MLD (million litres per day) to 20 MLD.
The draft said 1,075 mts-long pipeline of 610 mm dia would be laid from the jackwell at Thumbe to Ramalkatte settling tank.
It said 14 new overhead tanks would be built in the city to store water. They have been planned in Kunjathbail, Nekkilagudda, Mary Hill, Santhosh Nagara, Shakthi Nagara, Nehru Maidan, Nandi Gudda, Moragan’s Gate, Valencia, Amrut Nagara, Surathkal (NIT-K), Kodipady and Krishnapura-Katipalla.
