Water in the famed ‘Nalan Kulam’ – a temple tank at Sri Saneeswarar temple in Tirunallar would not be let out henceforth. A recycling plant is being set up to treat water in the temple tank for use once again by the teeming devotees.
The treatment plant, with a capacity of handling 12 lakh litres of water, comprises a series of tanks to treat water through filtering process. While three tanks — collection, clarified, and sledge tanks — are uniform in size with 5.5 metres in diameter and six metres in height, the collection tank is larger with 16 metres in diameter and four metres in height.
The filtering process will be taken up in two phases — aeration filter and sand filter. While civil works have been completed, electrical works would be taken up in course of time, according to official sources.
Being executed at an outlay of Rs. 2.14 crore under the Tirunallar Temple Town Development project, the works are expected to be completed by March next year, according to E. Vallavan, District Collector.
The project is meant to avoid letting out large volume of water that is pumped from the borewell on the temple. At present, the water is drawn from the borewell at different levels commensurate with devotees’ inflow. The water level reaches its peak on Saturdays when devotees turn up in large numbers to the temple, officials said. The volume of water drawn ranges from 25 lakh to 40 lakh litres.
Once operational, the treatment plant would handle 12 lakh litres daily indicating that the treatment would be a continuous process and the treated water would be supplied continuously.
The officials said that the strategy for treatment would be decided only after a couple of months after its inauguration.
