THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With water from Peppara dam expected to satiate city dwellers for another 25 days, Kerala Water Authority and Irrigation engineers are toiling hard to start the pumping of water from Neyyar dam to Aruvikkara dam. Officials have been working relentlessly to ensure that water will be pumped from Neyyar dam from Thursday onwards. Efforts are on to complete pipe laying works in the remaining 600 metres from Neyyar dam towards the Ayani kadavu canal out of the total 1200 metre (1.25 km) stretch within Wednesday night itself. The KWA and irrigation officials are hoping to start the pumping of water from Thursday morning.
There has been delay in getting the dredgers on time especially the one that was expected to reach Neyyar dam from Travancore Cements from Kottayam on Monday. But irrigation officials claim that there has not been much delay and work has been progressing as per the earlier plans. "Initially our plan was to dig a pond and from there a tributary will be laid towards the canal. But due to rocky terrain, the labourers could not dig the pond which forced us to abandon that plan. So we had to go farther inside and make way to pump water through the help of three to four dredgers to the canal", said a top irrigation department official to DC.
Water resources minister Mathew T. Thomas has been holding meetings with officials to oversee the progress being made to pump water from Neyyar dam to Aruvikkara dam. His office informed that that hopefully on Thursday, trial pumping of 500 cubic metres of water per hour (10 Million Litres/Day) would be started. But officials are unable to give a concrete reply on when the public would be able to get non-stop drinking water supply from Aruvikkara dam with the new mechanism. Kerala State Electricity Board officials have also rendered their support in installing a total of five transformers so that more water can be pumped in apart from seeking the service of four to five dredgers.
