THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: THE Kerala Water Authority’s plans to step up pumping from the Neyyar river for city water supply got a boost on Tuesday with the arrival of two submersible pumps from Gujarat.
The pumps have a capacity of 180 hp each and can pump up to 50 million litres a day (MLD), KWA officials said.
At present, the water utility is pumping up to 35 MLD using two dredgers. The government had lifted restrictions on the water supply to the city up to Wednesday. Whether restrictions should be continued from Thursday would be decided on Wednesday.
The KWA had deployed two 100 hp pumps over the past few days to supplement the pumping, but they had not proved a total success. “Continuous pumping of water was not possible with the two centrifugal pumps. Anyhow, they used stop-gap arrangements until the arrival of the submersible pumps from Gujarat,” a senior KWA officer said.
Meanwhile, the water scarcity faced by the capital city came up in the Assembly on Tuesday after V S Sivakumar MLA raised the matter through a submission
In his reply, Water Resources Minister Mathew T Thomas outlined the measures so far taken by his department to address the issue. Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting is also expected to review the measures taken so far.