City dwellers who hoped to receive a share of the Piravom river water through the Maradu water treatment plant this summer, might get disappointed as the elusive project continues to be delayed for full commissioning.
The supervising officials hope that in two weeks they would be able to treat at least 10 million litres a day (mld) of water against the installed capacity of 100 mld and distribute it to the Maradu municipality and the neighbouring two panchayats.
Making even the one-tenth of the plant operational seems to be a task fraught with problems like leaks.
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The new leak could be repaired without much problem, said the official in-charge of the project under Jawaharlal Nehru National Renewal Mission.
The trial run of the plant that began in the second week of June was shut down due to a leak that had sprung up in one of the major pipes near the overhead tank at Maradu. Repairs took a long time as the leaking pipe was located on the busy Maradu road from Kundanoor.
Even if the trial run is successfully over, the facility can operate only one-tenth the installed capacity because of power shortage.
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The plant has been provided with only 100 kv power, where as for full capacity, it needs 1,000 kv.
The building to house the transformers is still going on and the plant is expected to get its full power only after two months.
Though all three pumps at the Piravom river have been installed to pump water to the treatment plant located 22 km away, only one pump would be utilised in a two-hourly gap because of the small power capacity at the plant site.
The project delayed by over seven years in implementation had been in abeyance for long as land acquisition and the people’s protests had stalled the work.
But works seem to be unnecessarily delayed because of not getting many works done simultaneously to catch up on the lost time, believe some of the officials.