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Sunday, May 18, 2008
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Pilot project to arrest seawater intrusion

K. Lakshmi

— PHOTO: N. SRIDHARAN

LETTING POINT: The tank of Marundeeswarar temple in Thiruvanmiyur.

CHENNAI: To arrest seawater intrusion at Besant Nagar, the Groundwater circle of the Public Works Department has proposed a pilot project to use rain run-off water from Taramani and its neighbouring places to recharge Besant Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur areas.

The project was approved by the State-level steering committee under the chairmanship of PWD secretary and has been sent to the Ministry of Water Resources for approval.

A PWD official said groundwater in Besant Nagar had been affected due to intrusion of seawater up to 500 metres. On the other hand, Taramani was a clay-bedded area that allowed only less water infiltration. The proposed project would serve two purposes — prevent water logging in chronic areas and arrest seawater intrusion through artificial recharge.

To be funded by the Central Ground Water Board, this project envisages linking of rain run-off water from Taramani and institutions such as IIT-Madras and Anna University to Marundeeswarar temple tank at Thiruvanmiyur instead of draining it into the Buckingham Canal, he said.

The rain run-off water collected in the storm water drain at Taramani would be arrested near IT Corridor along the bank of Buckingham Canal and would be diverted to a sump.

The water collected in the sump would be pumped through an intake well and transmitted to the temple tank through a 2-km pipeline. The water would be released into the tank after filtering it in a chamber.

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