Coimbatore Corporation accepts Pilloor-Siruvani link project report

To help civic body streamline drinking water supply

The Coimbatore Corporation has accepted the detailed project report (DPR) on linking the Pilloor-Siruvani drinking water pipelines.

At a meeting at the Corporation on Tuesday, the civic body officials accepted the DPR presented by Fichtner Consulting Engineers India Private Limited.

The project, as passed by the Corporation Council in August this year, has to do with the linking of the Main Service Reservoir in Ramakrishnapuram with the Bharati Park Reservoir on Bharati Park Road. The civic body had earmarked Rs. 15 crore for the project.

As per the DPR, the Corporation will link the Ramakrishnapuram reservoir, coming under the Pilloor drinking water supply scheme, with the Bharati Park Reservoir, coming under the Siruvani water supply scheme, by laying a pipeline for over 10 km.

According to Commissioner T.K. Ponnusamy, the pipeline length increased by two km because the civic body had gone in for a different alignment, avoiding Sathyamangalam Road.

Sources in the civic body said that the Corporation had now planned to take the mild steel pipeline from Ramakrishnapuram, through Maniakarampalayam and along Sanganoor Road to Bharati Park Road. This was to avoid the Sathyamangalam Road, along which the Corporation has already carried another water main line.

By taking a different route, the Corporation would be able to carry the pipeline entirely along its roads and thereby avoid paying a hefty restoration charges to the Highways.

The civic body would also be able to provide a main supply to areas that were hitherto deprived of one.

The sources explained that by taking the Pilloor-Siruvani interlinking line through the aforementioned areas, the Corporation would have laid a main supply line, which could be of use during the execution of water supply schemes like the 24x7 drinking water supply scheme.

The sources also added that the increase in cost was on account of the new alignment. Mr. Ponnusamy said that as and when the work was complete, the Corporation in times of fall in water level in the Siruvani Dam, would be able to step up water supply to Siruvani-fed areas. Twenty-six of the 100 wards in the Coimbatore Corporation get Siruvani water.

If the water reached the Bharathi Park reservoir, the Corporation would be able to supply water once in two or three days, as it used to when the water position in the Siruvani Dam was comfortable.

The sources pointed out that the scheme would be particularly helpful in years like the present one when the water level was at least 18 feet short of what it should be.

The Corporation would now send the DPR to the State Government for administrative sanction, which would be followed by technical sanction. Thereafter the civic body would float tenders inviting bids to execute the project.