The Hindu : Corporation to go ahead with water supply scheme

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

Corporation to go ahead with water supply scheme

By T. Nandakumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM April 28. The decision of the City Corporation council to seek reimbursement of the funds deposited with the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) for implementation of the Thrikkannapuram water supply scheme was only a pressure tactic to put the project on the fast track, it has emerged.

While Corporation sources maintain that the council resolution would not scuttle the project, KWA officials admitted that they were taken aback by the decision. "There has been no delay on our part. The work is in progress and we are in the process of screening the tenders for construction of a treatment plant. The Corporation has made only a part-payment for the project,'' said the KWA managing director, R. Ramanujam.

Corporation functionaries said the decision to seek reimbursement of the deposit funds was forced by an audit query seeking explanation for the delay in implementing the project. They clarified that the local body had to take some action to expedite the scheme which is already lagging by two years.

The Mayor, J. Chandra, asserted there was no question of backing out of the project. "An amount of Rs.1 crore has already been spent on various works,'' she pointed out.

LDF leaders in the Corporation said the council decision was only an attempt to speed up the project and ensure time-bound completion. The Mayor said the civic body had adequate funds at its disposal to finance the project. "We hope to get the scheme commissioned by next April,'' she added.

With a capacity of seven million litres daily, the project was designed to cover the Thrikkannapuram, Mudavanmugal, Poojappura and Chengalloor wards which face acute water scarcity during the summer months.

Taken up under the Plan Campaign, the scheme envisaged the construction of a well-cum-pump house at Paramala in the Thrikkannapuram ward. Water sourced from the Karamana river will be routed through the pump house to a treatment plant. After purification, it will be sent to a sump-cum- reservoir and fed to a service reservoir at Kunnubungalow through a gravity main. The water will be distributed through a network of pipes in Mudavanmugal and neighbouring wards.

Ever since the proposal was cleared in 2000, it has been bogged down by a prolonged dispute between the Corporation and the KWA. In 2000, the Government accorded administrative sanction for the project and approved an estimate of Rs.592.5 lakhs. The same year, the Corporation deposited Rs.2.2 crores with the KWA to execute and maintain the project. An amount of Rs.25 lakhs was spent on acquiring land.

The first hurdle arose after the National Project Construction Corporation (NPCC) approached the local body with a proposal to take up the work as a turnkey project. On January 9, 2001, the Corporation Council ratified a decision to award the scheme to the NPCC after preliminary discussions.

The Central agency submitted a detailed estimate for the project. The KWA, which preferred the competitive tender route, objected to the proposal stating that it was way above the approved PWD rates. The UDF- led Opposition in the Corporation council also put up stiff resistance to the NPCC bid.

Confronted with a logjam on the issue and the political implications of preferring a single offer to the tender route, the Corporation finally decided to drop the NPCC proposal and entrusted the work to the KWA. The project cost was fixed at Rs.4.5 crores. But by the time the issue was sorted out, precious time had been lost and the project was delayed by more than two years.

The council resolution seeking refund of the deposit amount was adopted unanimously last week. LDF leaders claimed that the project would go ahead at any cost. They maintained that the resolution would in no way affect the progress of the scheme.

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