Mira Bhayandar: Mira Bhayandar: In a welcome news on the water-front for the citizens of the twin-city, around 85 per cent of the much-awaited 403 million litre per day (MLD) Surya Regional Water Supply Scheme has been completed.
While the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is executing this mega project, it is projected to be fully completed within the next seven months. However, it will take at least a year for the long-awaited dream of round-the-clock water supply to become a reality in a phased manner, following trial runs scheduled for May or June next year.
5-month delay in Project
The five-month delay has been attributed to hurdles in getting the needed quantum of electric supply for lifting of raw water from Kawadas pickup weir situated in Dahanu Taluka on the downstream of Surya dam. Relying on the Surya Dam at the Dhamani village in Jawhar, the MMRDA has embarked on a mission to provide bulk water supply amounting to 403 MLD which will be divided between Mira Bhayandar and Vasai Virar in a proportion of 218 and 185 MLD respectively.
For Vasai-Virar, the project is into its final stages and will start delivering water next month. A team led by MLA’s -Pratap Sarnaik, Geeta Jain accompanied by the senior MMRDA and civic officials reviewed the on-site progress of the gravity transmission project undertaken by the Larsen & Toubro Ltd on Thursday. The project having a price tag of Rs.1,977 crore achieved a significant breakthrough of an advanced tunnel boring machine (TBM) at the Medhwankhind water tunnel with an internal diameter of 2.85 m, in December-2022. While the TBM successfully covered the length of 1.7 km for the Medhwankhind underground pipeline, work was in progress for other three tunnels including-Tungareshwar (4.45km), Vasai and Kaman creek having a length of 0.9 and 0.250 km respectively. The master balancing reservoir (MBR) located at Chene village to store water is also nearing completion.
Six heavy duty motor pumps have been installed at Kawadas pickup weir which need an electric supply of 132 KV to lift raw water, however the actual supply is limited to just 33KV which is sufficient to run only two pumps. Owing to delays in procuring permissions from concerned agencies to lay pipelines on forest land, the dispensation of water is expected to begin from May or June next year.
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