Hyderabad: Plants at ORR to get drip irrigation

It will be installed in three rows along the median and three rows on the shoulder on either side, totalling nine rows on the main carriageway of the ORR

Hyderabad: The median and avenue along the 158 km Outer Ring Road (ORR) will soon be embedded with an advanced drip irrigation system for watering the plantations along the expressway. The system is being set up to ensure the healthy growth of saplings and also to cut down the expenditure on watering the saplings.

Hyderabad Growth Corridor Limited (HGCL) has taken up median and avenue plantation along the expressway in addition to the large number of plantation taken up under Haritha Haram.
Currently, saplings are being watered manually through water tankers. Besides being expensive, the practice was resulting in inefficient use of water as lot of wastage was being reported, Municipal Administration and Urban Development Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar told Telangana Today.

HGCL spends about Rs 30 crore a month towards watering the saplings through water tankers. More importantly, the use of slow-moving water tankers to water saplings on the medians has also been a cause of accidents on the expressway.

Other challenges in the current practice include time taken for watering, manual intervention and financial and environmental viability. Considering all these factors, the State government decided to set up the drip irrigation system on the ORR. It will be installed in three rows along the median and three rows on the shoulder on either side, totalling nine rows on the main carriageway of the ORR. In addition to this, sprinklers and a basic watering system would also be set up in all the interchanges, he said.

Stating that the entire system will run on an automated platform, Arvind Kumar said any defect or leakage in the lines will be detected by the system automatically with a timely switch on and off mechanism. “The executing agencies will be entrusted with the responsibility of operation and maintenance of the system for seven years,” he explained.

“Installation of drip irrigation is expected to save nearly Rs.37 crore for HGCL in seven years, besides being sustainable and environment-friendly,” Arvind Kumar said.

The total project cost is estimated to be Rs.47 crore and will be executed in five packages, including setting up the sprinklers at interchanges. Tenders have already been floated to take up the project, and the targeted time-frame to implement the entire project is three months, he said.

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