With an aim at making available drinking water at nominal rates to residents, the city Corporation has set up a reverse osmosis (RO) plant at the Vayambachira pond in Mannanthala.
The plant has been set up under the poverty alleviation mission programmes of the Kudumbashree, funded by the civic body.
The plant, set up at a cost of ₹75 lakh, has a capacity to purify 5,000 litres of water per hour. According to Corporation officials, they have been planning such RO plants in waterbodies located near areas experiencing high water scarcity.
Rates yet to be fixed
“But the plant cannot be set up in ponds or other waterbodies that go dry or in which the water level falls drastically during summers. The Mannanthala pond was thought to be ideal as it has ample capacity all through the year. Some of the areas near here also face water scarcity. So, this will become a step towards addressing that too. Ideally, anyone can buy water from here. The rates are yet to be fixed, which will be done by the Corporation council,” said an official of the Corporation’s engineering wing.
The project is also aimed at generating revenue for the local Kudumbashree unit, which has the responsibility of running the plant. The water extraction will be regulated in such a way as to not to affect the health of the waterbody.
The Vayambachira pond, spread over 1.55 acres, was under the Ulloor grama panchayat until the local body’s merger with the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation in 2000. In addition to natural replenishment by groundwater, small streams from nearby flows into it. But with houses coming up in recent decades, some of these streams were blocked.
The pond, which had fallen into disuse some years ago, was revived in recent years under various projects of the Corporation. Desilting was carried out and boundary walls were constructed to prevent encroachment.
City Corporation Mayor K. Sreekumar inaugurated the RO plant on Wednesday. C. Sudarshanan, chairman of the Corporation’s education standing committee, presided over the function.
