Metrowater will soon run through taps and pipelines in the satellite township of Sriperumbudur in Kancheepuram district.
The water body will begin work on providing comprehensive water and sewerage network and a dedicated sewage treatment plant in Sriperumbudur town panchayat. It is one of the few projects that the water agency is executing out of its periphery.
In the past, Metrowater has undertaken similar projects in Madurai and Kumbakonam.
Sriperumbudur has been chosen to be developed as a satellite town under the Centrally-sponsored scheme of Urban Infrastructure Development. The concept of a satellite town, developed in the vicinity of a metropolis, was mooted to reduce pressure on the city itself.
Metrowater is scrutinising bids to execute water supply and drainage projects worth Rs. 90 crore in Sriperumbudur. Work orders will be issued shortly, an official said.
A Rs. 13-crore sewage treatment plant will come up in an area of 1.93 acres at Sriramanujam Nagar. It will have the capacity to treat an average of 8.5 million litres a day, the estimate for 2027. The project will be completed by March 2014.
The cost will be shared among the Union and State governments and the Sriperumbudur town panchayat in the ratio of 80:10:10.
Though there are many major manufacturing and automobile industries around the Sriperumbudur belt, it presents a picture of neglect like several peripheral areas in the Chennai Metropolitan Area.
Metrowater’s move is bound to bring some respite to residents who reel under a water shortage even during the rainy season. L. Srinivasan of Gandhi Nagar in Sriperumbudur, said, the town panchayat provided drinking water through street taps once a week.
“I manage with groundwater and spend heavily on packaged drinking water. During the summer, we get tap water once in a fortnight,” he said.
Several residents release sewage into a water course and nearby lakes as the area lacks a sewerage system. G.K. Karthikeyan, councillor of ward 13, said the projects must be expedited as other developmental works have been kept on hold.
