Civic body looking at expediting lake rejuvenation project

Consultant engaged at ₹5.30 crore to prepare a detailed project report

Desilting, conservation, preventing dumping of waste and letting in of effluents and sewage water into water bodies such as Valankulam in Coimbatore continue to remain a cause for concern.

Coimbatore Corporation, it appears, is looking at expediting the lake rejuvenation project under the Smart Cities programme.

The project aims at rejuvenating the eight lakes under the Corporation’s maintenance, developing the area around those lakes into public places and build a non-motorised corridor connecting the water bodies. This is part of the area based development component of the Smart Cities programme.

At present the Corporation has engaged a consultant, Oasis Designs Inc., that is preparing a detailed project report at ₹5.30 crore. Members of the company on Sunday lifted water samples from Valankulam tank to study the pollution level.

Sources familiar with the development said that though the Corporation had given the consultant 10 months time to prepare the detailed project report, it was planning to go ahead with some of the components of the lake rejuvenation project based on the interim report, which is expected within the month. As for the lake rejuvenation, the sources said that the Corporation would decide on the technology to be adopted to clean the sewage flowing into the tanks only after the detailed project report was ready. In a few cases, it could look at linking the inlet channels to set up a sewage treatment plant. Or diverting the inlet channels to the nearby underground sewer lines or setting up bioremediation methods. The method to be adopted would also vary from tank to tank.