KOCHI: Kochi city has experienced severe water shortage for the past few days and the worst hit has been Infopark, where around 43,000 techies work. The Operation Pure Water, launched by the district administration to ensure safe drinking water, led to the water scarcity as the authorities imposed restrictions on drawing water from wells and stone quarries.
Availability of good quality surface water suffered a major setback in Thrikakkara due to pollution and drying up of high yielding wells on account of urbanisation. Water pumped from Periyar river is the source of supply and nowadays, making available good quality drinking water is a major problem. Current supplies from the Aluva water supply schemes are occasional and grossly insufficient to meet the rising needs of the local community.
As things stand today, it may not yield more quantities due to problems of availability, limitations in treatment plant capability and pipeline constraints. We may have to consider enhancing the carrying capacity of existing water lines from Aluva via proper de-bottlenecking of existing supply. Alternatively, we may try to draw water from Periyar Valley Irrigation Project to the 200-acre Ambalamedu Lake through the existing canal, put up treatment plant and supply to the neighbouring Thrikakkara via the Brahmapuram-Kakkanad route and to Tripunithura via Chithrapuzha or Irumpanam.
Augmentation of water supply to the lake from Muvattupuzha River is also possible. The solution lies in a sufficiently sized water treatment plant. Following the closure of the fertiliser plant, a massive water pumping and treatment plant is lying idle at Ambalamedu. Making use of the facility will help FACT earn some revenue and resolve the crisis. As water demand goes up, we may have to look at the protection, conservation and recycling of water sources.
The Periyar and Muvattupuzha river streams are getting polluted due to dumping of toxic and pathogenic of wastes. Technology for treatment of waste water has become highly versatile and cost effective.
In the first step, waste water is screened and solid particles and sludge are removed. Then water is aerated to remove bad odour and promote growth of bacterial activity to disintegrate biological waste components. In the tertiary treatment, water is filtered and chlorinated or disinfected with ozone/UV rays to remove harmful pathogens. The regenerated water has a quality that matches pure rainwater.
A comprehensive scheme to collect the waste water from institutions in and around Infopark area to a pond to be located at low elevation and setting up of a water recovery unit with attendant facilities will help augment water for repeat use in the locality. It is time to think on these lines rather than harping of conventional schemes for increasing fresh water supply.(M P Sukumaran Nair is Director of Centre for Green Technology & Management, Kochi, and former chairman of Public Sector Restructuring and Internal Audit Board)