The Kerala Water Authority (KWA) has informed the High Court that necessary measures, including increasing the number of pumping stations, had been taken for improving water supply to the West Kochi area.
The submission was made when a writ petition filed by M.H.M. Asharaf from West Kochi seeking a directive to provide quality drinking water to the people in the area came up for hearing. According to him, the people of the area were experiencing water shortage even after the construction of a 2.2-million litres per day (mld) capacity new water tank at Modi Bathroom Junction at Mattancherry at a cost of ₹2.2 crore and the repair of the old water tank at Fort Kochi. Moreover, not even a litre of water was supplied to the public from the water tank at Koovapadam.
In a statement, the KWA said drinking water to the West Kochi area was mainly supplied from the Karuvelipady pump house. However, the main source of water was the Perumanoor pump house. In order to improve water supply, a major replacement of old pipes was carried out. Old 600-mm mild steel (MS) pumping main laid underneath the Mattancherry Bridge was replaced with a new pipe of a length of 600 m. The Karuvelipady pump house had now two sources of water, one from the Perumanoor pump house and other from the Nettoor pump house. Besides, the old and damaged Premo pipe from Bristol Road to the east end of Mattancherry Bridge was laid for a length of 650 m. The old and damaged pumping main of a length of 600 m was also replaced. For getting water from the Maradu plant under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) project, 700-mm ductile iron (DI) pipe of a length of 185 m was laid and interconnected with newly laid 600 mm MS pipe underneath the old Mattancherry Bridge.
The work of replacing the existing 525 mm distribution-cum-pumping main with 600-mm DI pipe rider main from Karuvelipady pump to Koovapadam Overhead Service Reservoir (OHSR) along Santho Gopalan Road was nearing completion under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) project. As a result of those works, water supply in the entire West Kochi area had improved considerably and there was no major scarcity of water in the area, stated the KWA.
The court disposed of the petition, recording the submission of the KWA.
