Rs 1000 Crore Project by Kerala Water Authority

11 October 2013
Kochi

The Kerala Water Authority (KWA) never seems to get tired of preparing grand projects for the city and having their projects rejected repeatedly by concerned authorities. In yet another grand design, KWA is preparing a detailed project report (DPR) for renovating its water distribution network in Kochi at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore. Other than replacing their entire pipeline network in the city and suburbs, the project also aims to zone the distribution network so as to minimise supply loss and achieve optimum utilisation of water.

As part of the project, which KWA hopes to implement with funds from an earlier Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) loan, they plan to construct storage tanks with a capacity of at least three million litres each in various parts of the city. At present, there are only a few storage tanks in the city and most of them have very little storage capacity.

“The plan is to construct storage tanks in the places such as Kaloor, Vyttila and Pachalam. The existing overhead tanks in areas like Kadavanthra would also be used,” an official with KWA said. “Flow meters would be installed in each storage tank to measure the exact flow of water in a particular area. Officials will be made responsible if there is a huge disparity in supply and revenue,” he said.

KWA has started collecting data for the same and expect to complete the DPR in six months. Once completed, the DPR will be send to the Union urban development ministry for approval to avail the JICA loan.

All the concrete primo pipes used for the distribution network from Aluva to west Kochi will be replaced with ductile iron (DI) pipes. As per the primary assessment, the project will cost around Rs 1,000 crore. Of this Rs 760 crore will be come from JICA with the remaining funded by the state government.

The water authority had received a loan of around Rs 3,000 crore in 1997 from JICA for five drinking water projects in the state. After the completion of the project, KWA has a balance amount of Rs 760 crore. However, the KWA has to get Union urban development ministry’s approval for using this amount.

This is not the first time that KWA has tried to utilize this fund. A few months back, they had proposed to set up a 190 million litre a day (MLD) drinking water project at Kalamassery using this fund. The DPR was also sent to the urban development ministry. But it was turned down as KWA couldn’t substantiate its claims of city’s population exceeding one million.

Source– http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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