Hurdle cleared for Ballari water supply project.

Digging a micro tunnel through a solid rock below the twin railway tracks near the Allipur water treatment plant has helped the authorities overcome a major hurdle in the implementation of the drinking water supply project for Ballari city. The work on the project, estimated to cost Rs. 125 crore, is on the fast track now.

'Without the tunnel, we could not have laid a pipeline to draw water from the right bank low-level canal of the Tungabhadra reservoir, located 24 km away at Moka. The work on laying the pipeline is nearing completion and the trial run to fill water into the Allipur reservoir will be done in a couple of days,' a senior official of the Ballari City Corporation told The Hindu .

Now, drinking water is being supplied to the city through Allipur and Moka reservoirs. The Allipur reservoir, which caters to around 60 per cent of the water requirements of the city, can store water for 180 days with the high-level canal of the Tungabhadra reservoir as its main source.

The Moka reservoir can store water which will be sufficient for 90 days with the low-level canal as its source.

As water is being released into the high-level canal for less than six months, the city residents are forced to face drinking water crisis in summer.

To tide over this crisis, the corporation, which was under the control of the Bharatiya Janata Party, proposed a project to draw water from the low-level canal, in which water will be available for about 11 months, to fill up Allipur reservoir under a Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation project, keeping in mind the present population and also the projected population in 2041.

Once the project is completed, water drawn from the low-level canal will be treated near Sangankal and supplied to the city and the Allipur reservoir will be filled up.

'With this arrangement, the water augmented in Allipur reservoir will be used for only four months and the water crisis during summer could be overcome,' the official said.

The work on laying pipeline for raising raw water from Moka to Allipur reservoir has been completed. Eighty-five per cent of the work on construction of a water treatment plant near Sangankal is over.

Replacement of the 130-km internal distribution pipeline, of the total length of 160 km, has been completed. The work on laying a pipeline for pure water from Allipur to the mother tank near Karimaremma temple, construction of a couple of overhead tanks and other minor works are pending and were likely to be completed by July, the official added.

The Hindu