Congress to join water body restoration bandwagon

A lake catering to the drinking water needs of Devandavakkam village at Poondi block in Tiruvallur would be desilted with public participation from Sunday. TNCC president KS Alagiri would launch the programme aimed at harvesting rainwater in the presence of constituency MP K Jayakumar. In a statement, the state Congress, which has been slamming the ruling AIADMK for the prevailing water crisis, has also attributed the prevailing drinking water crisis to failure in harvesting rainwater, the same rainwater harvesting project the ruling AIADMK has been claiming credit for.

TNCC, probably, was a wee bit slow in waking up to the water crisis in the State, thanks to a fledgling Makkal Neethi Maiam (MNM) led by actor Kamal Haasan which had launched restoration of Santhaleeshwarar temple tank in Kancheepuram on July 1. Last month, Rajini Makkal Manram (RMM) had undertaken restoration of Chitlapakkam lake. Congress ally DMK was the forerunner in lake restoration as a counter to the government’s kudimaramathu scheme.

TWAD MD inspects Jolarpet water project work

Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage board (TWAD) MD CN Mahesvaran on Saturday inspected the work under way in Jolarpet to ensure that water from the Hogenekkal Combined Water Scheme reaches Chennai soon.

He first inspected the ground level reservoir, which has a capacity of 5.50 lakh litres, at Jolarpet municipality to which water will be brought from the Cauvery drinking water scheme.

It is located nearly a kilometre away from where the water would be pumped to the Jolarpet railway station overhead tank at Parasanpet.

Three submersible pumps of 40 HP each will pump the water to the overhead tank from where it will be loaded into railway tankers and then transported to Villivakkam. Then, it will be decanted, sent to Kilpauk water works and then distributed to the city, officials revealed.

A total of fifty workers are employed round-the-clock and the scheme is expected to become operational by July 10 when the first tanker rake will leave for Chennai.