Work on the ₹ 543.20 crore combined drinking water scheme, which was designed in 2017 for the benefit of five municipalities – Sankarankovil and Puliyangudi in Tenkasi district and Rajapalayam, Sivakasi and Thiruthangal in Virudhunagar district – is to commence shortly.
With the funding of the Central and the State Governments and also contributions from the beneficiary urban local bodies, the multi-crore project is to be executed for the benefit of 4.50 lakh population living now in these urban local bodies. When survey for this project was conducted in 2017, it was estimated that the five municipalities had 4.35 lakh population and it had increased to 4.45 lakh now.
“As per this estimation, the five beneficiary municipalities will have 5.18 lakh people in 2032 which will rise to 6.21 lakh in 2047. Consequently, demand for drinking water of these municipalities will touch 46.08 million litres per day (MLD) in 2032 and 61.98 MLD in 2047. With Tamirbharani being the source, we’ve designed this project to adequately meet the demand of the population even after 27 years in these municipalities,” said Collector Shilpa Prabhakar Satish, after inspecting the site on Saturday.
To ensure abundant supply of water for this project, a well is to be sunk in the Tamirabharani and a check-dam across the river will be constructed to ensure stagnation of water around the well near Kondanagaram near here.
The 61.98 MLD water pumped out from the well will be taken to the purification tank situated about 3.98 Km from the well. Of this, 46.08 MLD will be purified everyday and supplied.
The purified water will be stored in two ground-level water tanks at purification centre with the capacity of 23.20 lakh litre and 2.50 lakh litre respectively before pumping it to the first pumping station at Manur situated about 21.81 km from the purification centre.
The second ground-level sumps with pumping station with the capacity of 23.20 lakh litre and 2.50 lakh litre will be constructed at Panaivadalichathram, situated about 22.23 km from Manur. The third pumping station will come up at Sankarankovil, where a massive ground-level sump will be constructed to pump the water to Puliyangudi municipality.
While Puliyangudi will get new ground-level sumps to ensure efficient drinking water supply, Thirunvenkatam town panchayat will also get new sumps under this project in addition to the existing overhead tanks and the sumps.
“Once this project is completed, every person in Puliyangudi (72,000 people) and Sankarankovil (63,000 people) municipalities will get 135 litres of water a day while the every resident of town panchayats en route will get 90 litres of water a day,” said Ms. Shilpa.
