MCC councillors urge Mayor to keep ‘Jala Siri’ project contractor out of proposed Adyar drinking water supply project

Councillors urge Mayor not to allot Adyar water project to Joint Venture of M/S Suez Projects & M/S DRS Infra due to their failure to complete "Jala Siri" project on time. Councillors cite "bogus" statistics & urge review of project implementation before handing over infrastructures.

Cutting across party lines, senior councillors at Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) at a meeting here on Friday, October 20, urged Mayor Sudheer Shetty Kannur not to allot the contract of constructing the proposed 125 million litres a day (MLD) capacity water treatment plant at Adyar, on the outskirts of the city, to the Joint Venture of M/S Suez Projects Pvt. Ltd. and M/S DRS Infra Pvt. Ltd.

It is because the councillors said the Joint Venture of M/S Suez Projects Pvt. Ltd. and M/S DRS Infra Pvt. Ltd. which is the contractor of ongoing “Jala Siri” project for the MCC has failed to complete the project on time and there are many grey areas which are yet to be addressed.

The Adyar project has aimed at supplying 125 MLD of water to the city from the new Adyar vented dam built across the Netravathi on the downstream of Thumbe vented dam built across the same river. This is a project proposed to get more drinking water to the city in addition to the water pumped from Thumbe dam.

The Mayor had called the meeting to review the progress of “Jala Siri” project aimed at strengthening infrastructure for ensuring round the clock water supply to people in the city.

Pressing the Mayor to keep the Joint Venture out of the Adyar project, the Leader of the Opposition Congress in the council T. Praveenchandra Alva said that the Joint Venture should have completed the “Jala Siri” project on May 23, 2023. But the government has given it one more year to complete the project by May 23, 2024. The delay reflected the efficiency of the Joint Venture. “At any cost the Adyar project should not be handed over to the Joint Venture,” Mr. Alva said.

Calling the statistics related to the project placed in the meeting as “bogus”, the whip in the council and a former Mayor Premananda Shetty said that the joint venture has not even achieved 50% of the overall physical progress of the project, the contract of which was awarded on December 24, 2019.

Mr. Shetty said that earlier the joint venture had promised to ensure round-the-clock water supply in two pilot zones – Kannur and Bendoor. It did not become a reality.