Palar to supplement Chennai supply

By T. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI, JULY 25. Faced with one of the worst drought spells in Chennai in recent years, the State Government has decided to tap Palar river as one more source of water for the city. It has proposed to construct a checkdam at Vayalur near the river mouth 75 km south of the city.

As per an estimate, 500 mcft of water is available at this point in three out of every four years and it can supplement the city supply. The Government has cleared a Rs.75-crore proposal and asked the Public Works Department to work out specifics. ``We will put up a regulator for pumping water from the checkdam site and also take adequate measures to arrest salinity intrusion at the point'', sources say.

The Vayalur checkdam project forms part of the schemes mooted by the AIADMK Government to manage city water supply. Others being pursued are the Pallikaranai Swamp-Oggiyam Madagu and Thiruneermalai reservoirs schemes.

On Tuesday evening, the Public Works Minister, Mr N. Dalavai Sundaram, accompanied by senior officials, inspected the three sites. All these projects are of short-term and medium-term nature. ``The Government is keen on formulating and implementing a long-term scheme too'', the sources say.

This is why its focus has, of late, turned to tapping the Cauvery from Pallipalayam near Erode. Working on an idea of the former PWD Chief Engineer, Mr. C. A. Srinivasan, the department has prepared a concept paper, as desired by the Chief Minister, Ms Jayalalithaa.

The proposal envisages formation of a canal from Pallipalayam to Chembarampakkam over a 400-km distance. The project cost, as worked out by Mr. Srinivasan, stands at Rs. 900 crores. But, the department has estimated the cost in the range of Rs. 1,200 crores to Rs.1,500 crores if an open-lined canal is dug and Rs. 1,800 crores to Rs.2,000 crores if a closed pipeline is laid.

As for the Thiruneermalai scheme, the administration thinks of implementing it on BOT basis. About 300 mcft of water can be harnessed by constructing a reservoir across the Adyar.

Meanwhile, Ms. Jayalalithaa will meet her Andhra Pradesh counterpart, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, on August 3 in Hyderabad to urge that State to ensure the supply of sizable amount of Krishna water at the Zero Point and seek completion of pending works on the Telugu Ganga scheme so that Somasila and Kandaleru can hold water to the revised capacity.

As of now, only a little more than two mcft of water has been realised by Tamil Nadu and the daily inflow was less than 5-10 cusecs. This has caused disappointment to the city residents as they expected the initial flow to be at least around 50 cusecs because the discharge from Kandaleru was around 190 cusecs.

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