The maintenance work on the Raiwada canal taken up after a gap of 10 years is expected to be completed by the third week of January. Work started on December 10. It also paves the way for taking up work on the Yeleru left main canal, the maintenance of which is also being postponed owing to exigencies of summer and poor inflows into the reservoir.
The work taken up at a cost of Rs.1.2 crores from the GVMC funds will improve the availability of water by 3 to 4 mgd, according to Chief Engineer B. Jayarami Reddy. While about 27 mgd is being pumped from the reservoir, only 15 to 16 mgd is being realised at the Narava filtration plant. The GVMC has sent proposals to the State government to lay a permanent conduit at a cost of Rs.120 crores to bring water by avoiding losses. Of the 58-km of the canal, work on about 48 km has been completed so far. De-silting has been taken up. Plastering of 20 aqueducts that allow passage of water with concrete also has been taken up. The 20 ‘drops' that had been in a bad shape where the canal level is too steep are also being repaired. About 2.5 km of the 15 km lining is also redone, besides strengthening of culverts and super passages.
Measuring instruments
While about 27 mgd is to be released thus far, there are no measuring instruments. “Now as a part of the maintenance work we are putting up two measuring instruments. One will be installed at ‘0' km and the other just before the Narava filtration plant,” says Executive Engineer P.V.V. Satyanarayana Raju.
In view of the work going on the Raiwada canal, water is being reverse pumped from the full-to-the-brim Meghadrigedda reservoir for the filtration plants of Yeleru canal as well as Raiwada reservoir to meet daily requirements. No water is coming from Yeleru also as the canal widening work is going on for which the municipal water supply pipeline is being shifted. Once the Raiwada work is completed, 15 mgd will be pumped to the filtration plant and about 4 mgd impounded in the MGR dam.
