Come September, water recycling plant will be ready at Tirunallar

The water re-cycling plant at ‘Nalan Kulam’ at Sri Dharbaranyeswarar Temple in Tirunallar, popularly known as Sri Saneeswarar temple, near here, will be completed by September.

The work had stalled due to delay in sanctioning of funds.

The tank needs periodical re-filling of fresh water, as a large number of devotees take a holy dip in it.

Sacred dip

The volume of devotees visiting the temple and taking a dip in the tank is large during the weekend, as Saturday is considered auspicious for devotees to offer their prayers to Lord Sri Saneeswarar.

The tank is cleared of the water periodically. So are the clothes abandoned by devotees.

The need for a water recycling plant has been felt largely due to the large volume of water pumped into the tank everytime. “The groundwater table, though safe now, will be disturbed in course of time. Hence, the implementation of the project was taken up under the Tirunallar Temple Town Development Project at an estimated Rs. 2.14 crore. Though work was delayed, there would be no hike in the estimates, an official source told The Hindu on Wednesday.

Official sources say about 25 lakh litres of water are required to re-fill the tank, which is about 1.5 acres in size. The treatment plant can handle 12 lakh litres, according to a technical report.

Procedure

Adoption of filter process — aeration filter and sand filter — is the first procedure for re-cycling. The used water from the tank is fed into a series of four tanks.

While three tanks are of uniform in size — 5.5 metre in diameter and height of six meter in height — the collection tank is larger with 16 metre in diameter and height of four metre.

Work on installation of the tanks have been completed, while other technical issues would be taken care of by September.

The operation of the re-cycling plant will be carefully monitored during initial three to four months, so that modifications, if necessary, can be introduced.