Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

`Aruvikkara treatment plants need two feeders'

G. Mahadevan

City's water supply relies on one sub-station

Thiruvananthapuram: The hours-long disruption of drinking water supply to many parts of the city on Monday afternoon due to a power blackout at Aruvikkara has, yet again, focussed attention on the inadequate power backup at the Kerala Water Authority's (KWA) treatment plants and pumping stations there.

According to the KWA officials, the 40-minute disruption of power from the KSEB's sub-station at Aruvikkara was a fallout of the heavy rain and strong winds that lashed the city and its suburbs on Monday.

The two dedicated feeders to the two treatment plants and one standby feeder all come from this sub-station. Moreover, all these feeders are drawn from one of the two power grids powered by this sub-station.

So, any problem at this sub-station has a direct bearing on the city's water supply as was seen on Monday afternoon.

Engineers of the KWA have long argued that each of the two treatment plants at Aruvikkara should have at least two dedicated feeders; one from the sub-station at Aruvikkara and the other from the sub-station at nearby Nedumangad.

"On Monday, when the Aruvikkara sub-station shut shop, the one at Nedumangad was live. If we had a feeder from there, we could have switched power supply in a short time. Even our standby feeder was anyway useless; in fact it is not even a dedicated feeder," a KWA engineer familiar with the power supply system at Aruvikkara said.

Before the KSEB set up its sub-station at Aruvikkara, there was a dedicated feeder drawn from Nedumangad to supply power to the treatment plants. Now that feeder is being used to source power for local, domestic connections. Therefore, point out KWA engineers, dedicated feeders can even now be given from Nedumangad to the treatment plants at Aruvikkara with minimal changes in the KSEB's infrastructure.

Pumping stations

When more treatment plants and pumping stations are set up at Aruvikkara as part of the JBIC scheme and the city's distribution network expands, more people will feel the impact of a water supply disruption if the power supply situation at the KWA's facility remains what it is today.

According to sources at the KWA, the agency has no immediate plans to augment power supply to its treatment plants and pumping stations at Aruvikkara.

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