Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board has floated tenders to begin the execution of a part of the Pilloor III drinking water supply project.
Sources in the TWAD Board said that the organisation floated the tenders a few days ago for three packages of the ₹740.15 crore project. The first of the three packages was for drawing water from River Bhavani, near Mettupalayam, taking the raw water to the treatment plant, and conveying the treated water from the plant to the main storage tank. The cost of the package was ₹434 crore.
The second package involves construction of water treatment plant for ₹80 crore. And, the third package for ₹50 crore was for tunnelling.
The sources said the Board would draw water from River Bhavani, convey it through a main pipeline for 16.50 km to the water treatment plant it would construct in Dandiperumalpuram hamlet in Marudhur village panchayat and take the treated water through the clear water pipeline for 16 km to the main storage tank. The Board had chosen a site in Pannimadai village to construct the main storage tank, which would store 146 lakh litre water.
The water treatment plant, which was the second package, would have a capacity to treat 178 million litres a day up to 2035, which was the intermediary stage of the project, and thereafter 318 million litres a day till 2050, the final stage of the project.
From the main storage tank, the Board would lay pipeline for 56 km to convey water to six storage tanks, from where the Coimbatore Corporation would take over the distribution.
The Board had proposed construction of three of the six tanks – in Valarmathi Nagar, Thudiyalur, Pillaiyarpuram, Kurichi, Press Enclave, and Kuniamuthur. And, it would use the existing two Pilloor tanks in Ramakrishnapuram and the storage reservoir in Bharathi Park.
As for the third package – tunnelling – the Board had proposed constructing a tunnel for 900m in the Kattan hillock to convey the water to the treatment plant.
This would be the second tunnel in the hillock; the first one is shared by the Board and Corporation to convey water for the Pilloor I and II projects.
Land acquisition
To execute the Pilloor III project, the Board required 162 acre, of which 126 acre belong to 1,027 persons. The sources said the Board would have to acquire land from all the aforementioned persons for laying pipeline. The remaining 36 acre belonged to the State Government.
To begin the process of land acquisition, the Board had requested District Collector T.N. Hariharan and he had formed a committee to begin the price negotiation process. The sources said the negotiation committee included a sub collector, two Corporation engineers, as many Board engineers, two tahsildars and a few other people.
The committee met on Thursday and finalised how it would go about negotiating with the farmers and estimating the compensation. One parameter would be factoring in the guideline value and highest registration value of land registered from the nine villages, the sources added.
