The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Peppara dam set for renovation

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Tuesday, Mar 11, 2008
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Peppara dam set for renovation

G. Mahadevan

Budgetary allocation to help Kerala Water Authority take up work

Photo: S. Mahinsha

FACELIFT SOON: A view of the Peppara dam from the Bonacaud estate.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A special allocation of funds for the renovation of the silt-laden Peppara dam has come as a shot in the arm for the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) which has often cited lack of money as the prime reason for not carrying out maintenance of the city’s sole source of drinking water.

In the State budget presented in the Assembly recently, Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac announced that Rs. 1 crore would be set apart for the renovation of the dam and the Wellington Water Works, which was commissioned in December 1933. Of this, Rs. 25 lakh is expected to be set apart for the renovation of the dam. The work will include strengthening of the “radial gates,” shutters put in place some years after the dam was commissioned, which can be used to augment the dam’s storage capacity, repairs on a sluice gate and removing tonnes of silt from the reservoir.

A study of siltation levels at Peppara carried out a few months ago by the Kerala Engineering Research Institute has reportedly pegged the level of silt at 12 per cent of the dam’s holding capacity. Field engineers of the Kerala Water Authority have long pointed out to the agency’s top brass that the Peppara dam, with its current levels of storage, would be just about able to meet Thiruvananthapuram’s drinking water requirements.

Once the projects, including those in the schemes of the Japan Bank of International Cooperation and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, are commissioned, the quantity of water stored at Peppara would prove insufficient.

One way of augmenting the dam’s storage capacity is by downing the radial gates. However, since this means the submersion of many acres of forest land in the catchment area, the Union Ministry of Forests and Environment has not given clearance for this proposal. The only immediate way out is to deepen the reservoir by de-silting it.

Now that funds have been promised to it, the KWA has no excuse for causing any further delay in executing the work. Some top officials who spoke to The Hindu said the KWA was yet to chalk out a firm plan for renovation of Peppara.

However, the KWA cannot on its own decide to de-silt the reservoir as it does not have rights to the sand. The project will have to be okayed by the State government.

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