The Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board’s efforts to acquire land to execute the Pilloor III drinking water supply project for the city got a boost with the State Government enhancing district collector’s powers for land acquisition.
The Government, through G.O. 526 of September26, has enhanced from 40 acre to 1,482 acre the land acquisition power of collector in respect of public purpose project.
This, sources say, means that Coimbatore Collector K. Rajamani can now issue the necessary notification for the Board to acquire the 125 acre required for laying the Pilloor III drinking water pipeline.
In the absence of the G.O., the administration would have sent the land acquisition proposal to the Commissioner for Land Administration for issuance of necessary notification. Now this is being done at the district level. And, the Collector is likely to issue the notification sometime next week, the sources add.
Once the notification is issued, the administration will begin the process of fixing price for the lands to acquired, village-wise to proceed with the process of acquisition.
The TWAD Board requires the land to convey water from where it draws water (headworks) to the raw water treatment plant and from there to the master storage reservoir – in short, it requires land to lay pipeline for 30-plus km at 15 m width.
This is only a part of the Pilloor III project, though. Sources in the TWAD Board say the third package of the project, which involves digging a 986-metre-long tunnel in Kattan hills to lay pipeline, has just begun.
The company entrusted with the ₹ 63 crore package has progressed tunnelling 50m and in the next 15 months, it will complete the work. Likewise, the second package worth ₹ 104 crore to construct a raw water treatment plant has also taken off, the sources say.
As for the construction of a master storage reservoir of 146 lakh litre, the Board has floated tender and on October 21, it is opening the tender to choose the lowest bidder, the sources add.
