The Kerala Water Authority (KWA) restarted pumping from Aruvikkara on Saturday afternoon after successfully completing the first phase of the renovation of the 74-mld and 86-mld (million litres a day) water treatment plants (WTP).
Piped water supply is expected to be restored in full to most of the city areas by early Sunday morning and the elevated areas by evening, KWA officials said. The two big WTPs and the electrical substation at Aruvikkara were shutdown at 2 p.m. on Friday.
The KWA staff were jubilant that they were able to stick to schedule and restart city supply by the afternoon. The water utility had planned to complete the work on the 74-mld plant at 2 a.m. on Saturday. It was completed 40 minutes ahead of schedule, with the pumping restarting at 1.20 a.m. “For the 86-mld plant, the plan was to complete the work and start pumping at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Work on the substation was completed by 10.30 a.m. and the pumping was started at 1.07 p.m. after an inspection by the Electrical Inspectorate,” Suresh Chandran, Superintending Engineer, PH Circle, Thiruvananthapuram, said.
Over Friday and Saturday, two pumps each in the raw water and clear water units of the 86-mld plant were isolated from the internal pipeline network. In the second phase, planned on January 4, 2020, the two pumps in the raw-water treatment facility will be replaced with a single higher-capacity pump. The two pumps in the clear-water facility will also be replaced with a single pump.
The renovation of the 74-mld and the 86-mld plants at Aruvikkara are planned in four phases. This entails temporary shutdown of the plants. Once the work is over, city water supply will go up by another 10 mld, KWA officials said.
16 hours in Phase II
The second-phase shutdown is planned on January 4, 2020. The 86-mld plant will be turned off for 16 hours in this phase. In Phase III, the 86-mld plant will be switched off for six hours. The final phase, planned on February 1, will see the shutdown of both the WTPs for 16 hours.
Over Friday and Saturday, the KWA supplied 248 tanker loads of water to different parts of the city. Forty-four loads were supplied from PTP Nagar, 170 from Vellayambalam, and 34 were from Attingal, a spokesperson said. The KWA had also arranged nearly 100 water kiosks.
