THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Every time you travel the Museum-Vellayambalam Road, you are also unwittingly crossing over a 75-year-old engineering marvel - a Travancore-era tunnel.
With one end at the Wellington Water Works, Vellayambalam, the tunnel (Tunnel No: 1) - one of the three running beneath Thiruvananthapuram city with a 33-inch water pipe - will be opened to the public as part of the 75th birthday of Water Works. The Kerala Water Authority is also planning a ‘Water Museum’ at the Water Works campus.
The tunnel, a 33-MLD water purification plant and the auxiliary facilities at the Water Works will be open to public for a week from February 4. In course of time, the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) plans to put them on permanent display, Water Resources Minister N.K. Premachandran said here on Wednesday.
``The tunnel is now being spruced up. It can be a major public attraction,’’ he said.
The tunnels are part of the 75-year-old network supplying water from the KWA Pumping Station at Aruvikkara to Thiruvananthapuram.
The 100-day diamond jubilee celebrations will be inaugurated at the Water Works compound on February 4. Uthradam Thirunal Marthanda Varma, the present head of the Travancore royal family which established the facility, will be honoured on the occasion, Premachandran said.
Designed in 1928, the Wellington Water Works was commissioned in the 1933-34 fiscal. The project included a dam across the Karamana river at Aruvikkara. Huge pipes bring water to the purification plant at Vellayambalam from where it is supplied to Kowdiar, Vellayambalam, Vazhuthacaud, Palayam, Statue, Thampanoor and Fort. Work started on the project during the reign of Regent Maharani Sethu Lakshmibai and was completed when Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma was Travancore king.
Engineer Balakrishna Rao supervised the work.
On December 13, 1933, Viceroy and Governor General of British India Lord Wellington inaugurated the project by sipping a glass of water collected from one of three hydrants at the plant.
The hydrants are still there, and the KWA plans to convert them into fountains.
``In the early days, a staffer used to walk over the pipeline after conducting poojas at the small shrine at Aruvikkara to Thiruvananthapuram and report to the King. This was to ensure that the pipeline was safe,’’ a KWA official said. THE TUNNELS: Tunnel No: 1 runs across the Museum-Vellayambalam Road. Tunnel No: 2 is under the Kowdiar Road and Tunnel No: 3 at Peroorkada.
