South Western Railways restores Devaragudihal lake to its past glory

Hubballi: Devaragudihal lake, one of the largest water bodies in the jurisdiction of the Indian Railways, with a storage capacity of 1935 million litres, was constructed in 1907 to meet water requirements of the railways in Hubballi.

This lake is 12 km away from Hubballi and 32km from Dharwad. The water supply system from this lake has been defunct for last 7-8 years and has now been restored by South Western Railway. It will now supply water to the railway colonies and pit lines at Hubballi.

Water from this lake flows to the Ahobalpur pump house through internal ducts and pipelines by gravity, where it is filtered and pumped to two over head tanks of 2.5 lakh litres capacity each, constructed over a hillock for onward supply to railway colonies and pit lines. Southern Mahratta Railway had central administrative offices in Dharwad because of shortage of water at Hubballi. Due to lack of level ground in Dharwad, railway workshop was set up in Hubballi. However as a solution to the water problem, Devaragudihal lake was constructed with a bund.

Supply of water from this lake to railway colonies and pit lines was regularly being done for nearly a century till 2010 but due to drying up of the lake water supply system from the lake was disrupted. Pipelines were also stolen /broken at few places and pumps had become inoperative.

A. K. Singh, General Manager, SWR directed railway officials to restore the water supply system to supplement water to station and colonies. Under the initiative of P K Mishra, Additional General Manager, SWR chalked out an action plan to revive the lake by restoring the pumps which had ceased working, to attend the underground pipe line (almost 15 Km long) and also repair the tanks in hill top. In order to rejuvenate the huge water body and restore supply from the lake, Railway officials led by Arvind Malkhede, Divisional Railway Manager, Hubballi, have repaired and restored all Engineering and electric works and restored the lake at a cost of Rs.2.5 crore.

With the restoration of the Lake and water supply to Hubballi approximately 10 to 12 lakh liters of water will be supplied to the Railway Colonies and Workshops.

SWR will be able to save about Rs.9 Lakhs per month in water bills. This restoration works will increase the frequency of water supply to Colonies and to the Pitlines.

Singh said that due to the ample rains for last two years, the lake has been filled to the brim and now the existing century old water supply infrastructure is revived to supplement water supplies to colonies, station and pit lines.