Sunkishala project set to quench parched throats in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: To address the future water needs of Hyderabad, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board (HMWSSB) has initiated a dedicated 'Sunkishala Raw Water Intake Drawl Project' to provide water supply to Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration (HUA) up to Outer Ring Road (ORR). The project is at the take-off stage and the Water Board has set a target of completing the project by June 2023.

In order to have a permanent and independent drawl arrangement for the existing Krishna Drinking Water Supply Project schemes of Phase-I, II and III and the proposed additional 20 TMC project from the Krishna source, the Water Board has proposed one common raw water drawl intake project at Sunkishala to draw water even from the below Minimum Drawdown Level (MDDL) to avoid any interruptions and resorting to emergency pumping system during summer season.

Currently,500 million gallons per day (MGD) water is being supplied to the city through 12.56 lakh customer drinking water connections from Krishna, Godavari, Manjira and Singur water sources.

To meet the future water supply demands, the HMWSSB drew out major source augmentation projects from the Godavari and Krishna sources. Under Godavari source, 20 Thousand Million Cubic Feet (TMC) source augmentation project is under process of grounding with a source from Kondapochamma Sagar. Another 20 TMC source augmentation was contemplated with the Krishna River. The Water Board official who is in charge of this project said, "The 'Sunkishala Raw Water Intake Drawl Project' consist of deep underground shaft-dry well and wet well (Surge Pool), and three intake tunnels at different levels for raw water drawls have been planned to set up with pumps and motors."

Trash and sluice gates, air vessels, transformers, electrical substation, dedicated HT feeder mains, MS pumping mains, staff quarters, and access escape tunnels will be constructed along with laying of pumping mains with about 5 km pipeline manufactured and 3km length of the pipeline is already laid.

The Water Board has observed the need for the project as the present Krishna Drinking Water Supply Project to supply 270 MGD (16.5 TMC) in three phases of 90 MGD (5.5 TMC).Each phase is under operation by drawing raw water from the AMRP Canal, which is a temporary arrangement through I&CAD Irrigation Canal.

This arrangement is causing emergency pumping every Summer season and resulting in interruptions to the existing Krishna water supply schemes to the city.

"If an Independent Intake structure is available, these temporary pumping problems can be avoided. So, for independent raw water drawl arrangement, this project has been up at Sunkishala," said an HMWSSB official.

This project will also enable the Krishna Drinking Water Supply Project to function with 100 per cent dependability since the dead storage in the Nagarjunasagar Reservoir also could be drawn through the Sunkishala Project in case of consecutive drought periods with meager or no inflows into the Nagarjuna Sagar Reservoir.

Moreover, the project is at the take-off stage with the major rock excavation for the underground shaft in brisk progress.

Out of 82m depth, about 62m depth of excavation has been completed by the Water Board.The Access Tunnels and Link Tunnels of 8m are also in progress. Out of 1,100 Rock Mass Types (RMT), so far 400 (RMT) are completed and intake tunnels are also in progress.