The Hindu : Work on water supply schemes progressing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Work on water supply schemes progressing

By Jeevan Chinnappa

MADIKERI March 3. Come summer, and water scarcity haunts the people of Madikeri. At this time, when summer is setting in, a few areas in the town have started getting drinking water supply on alternate days. If the Madikeri Town Municipal Council (TMC) authorities are to be believed, water will be supplied in all areas on alternate days from March 15.

Surprisingly, the problem arises not out of water shortage, but of power cuts, load shedding, and low voltage, Kaveramma Somanna, TMC President, and T.M. Aiyappa, vice-president, said. Several steps had been initiated already and some more were in the offing to meet water scarcity this summer.

Work on the scheme of the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board for providing drinking water supply from the Kootuhole Reservoir on the outskirts at Galibeedu is in progress. A 90-hp pumpset and a 100 kVA transformer have been installed and the work on the switchgear room completed. A 223 kVA diesel generator has been commissioned. An additional intermediate tower has been erected near the DAR quarters and a 150-hp centrifugal pumpset, a 160-kVA transformer, and a 225-kVA generator shed have been commissioned already. The work on laying of 12-inch pipes has been completed from Kootuhole to the intermediate tower and from there to the filter tank-bed at Stonehill. Trial runs would take some time before water from the reservoir is pumped into the filter tank-bed. The scheme is likely to be commissioned this month.

Mr. Aiyappa said almost all the pipelines laid in the past measured only six inches in diameter. This made pumping and supply of water difficult in the wake of population growth. The TMC had plans to replace these pipelines with 12-inch ones.

Scientists from the Department of Mines and Geology, Mysore, were engaged in the process to assess the yield in 30 borewells in different parts of the town. The assessment of five of them had been completed. Where water yield was above 5,000 gallons a day, motors would be installed to pump it to tanks for distribution. Water obtained from three borewells, which yielded more than 5000 gallons a day at Galibeedu, would be pumped and released into the Kootuhole Reservoir.

Construction of open wells too had been proposed in three areas.

When Ms. Somanna's attention was drawn to the problems suffered by the residents who get water from the Roshanara Tank, she said technical problems had caused the hitch. Water was now being supplied from a new source in Jayanagar which became operational recently.

She said a proposal to de-silt the Kootuhole Reservoir at a cost of Rs. 85 lakh had been approved by the KUWSDB and work would start in April. The reservoir supplied drinking water to a majority of the localities. A proposal had been worked out to plug leakage from the reservoir. A weir would be built for the purpose.

Mr. Aiyappa said an official of the KUWSDB was leaving for Bangalore on Tuesday to present three proposals, of which one would be selected, for providing drinking water in the town.

The proposals included the Vanachalu Gravity Water Project under which a distance of 10 km. would have to be covered from the water source to Madikeri town, Bethri to Madikeri (from the Cauvery) involving 18 km., and Devasthur to Gaddige involving 8.5 km. The last proposal looked viable currently, he said.

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