Efficacy of coastal reservoirs to address India’s water shortage by impounding excess river flood waters near the coast
‘Diversion of Nethravathi a big mistake’
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The director said that coastal reservoirs were a sustainable strategy for water resources development as the west-flowing rivers were largely clean. A coastal reservoir across River Nethravathi can provide water to entire Karnataka.
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Why Netravati is sustainable strategy? Whether
cleaning Cauvery 2 and storing its excess water flowing into ocean in coastal reservoir can't be a more sustainable strategy? Let Tamilnadu people use coastal reservoir water once river is cleaned. And let Karnataka use balance Cauvery water. Whether such a strategy doesn't save huge energy needed for pumping water through Westernghat? Otherwise please explain why cleaning Cauvery is not a sustainable strategy? Who does not like clean Cauvery - Malayalis or Kannadigas or Tamilians?
There are other west flowing clean rivers in Karnataka in sparsely populated regions. Building coastal reservoir utilizing them can also provide water to entire Karnataka. Why this extra interest to construct coastal reservoir near densely populated Netravati shore?
We need a CBI enquiry on this!
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“With the help of such reservoirs, it is also possible to create wetlands. A coastal reservoir causes zero environmental damage or large scale displacement. Instead, it can also minimise coastal erosion and provide sand for the construction industry. ..."
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Repetation. No answers to already raised questions on displacement, coastal erosion or sand availability. Anyway whether this new wetland can be used for growing lotus plants?
Experts pitch idea of ‘coastal reservoirs’ to meet water requirements
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Underlining the need to develop a revolutionary way for scientific usage of water, TG Seetharam, Director of IIT Guwahati, said the water demands of the country can be met by developing storage in coastal reservoirs. These structures will also help solve water disputes to a larger extent. He said the cost of coastal reservoirs is much lower compared to alternative water diversion schemes. The coastal reservoirs will not pose any harm to river basins or will not lead to the alteration of river course.
He said there will not be any disturbance to forest cover, and the question of submergence of land will not arise in this case. There will not be any worry related to reservoir-triggered seismicity either.
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Coastal reservoirs concept for water to entire state: IIT director
‘Diversion of Nethravathi a big mistake’
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Sarovar Maala patent
Sitharam had submitted a patent application for his ‘Sarovar Maala’ project. “Under this project, if 12 coastal reservoirs were built from Gujarat to Kolkata and connected with a pipe, India’s water problems would be solved,” he said.
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Inspired by the professor I am also claiming following patents on coastal reservoir dykes usage
- Runway on dyke - one of parallel dyke being taxiway.
Hence not only seaplanes but also landplanes can land on deepsea port to make it multimode port. (Too late to claim patent on deepsea port as Gujarat government has already planned for it in Kalpasar project).
- Planes with rail tyres for landing on railway track on dykes. (Too late to claim patent on railway track along dyke as Gujarat government has already planned for it in Kalpasar project).
- For laying utility pipeline & conveyor belt along dyke for connecting deepsea port with industries for goods transportation purposes.
- For running cable along dyke from deep subsea data centre till land fall point.
- For running electrical cable along dyke for connecting with floating wind mills or solar plants on seaside or reservoir side constructed parallel to dyke. And also running electrical cable from ocean-current plants or wave energy plants or ocean thermal/hydrothermal energy plants 1 on sea or deepsea side. (what will happen if data cable and electical cable lay side by side?).
- District cooling system with Sea Water Air Conditioning (SWAC) by having pipeline along dyke (as Makai Ocean Engineering is not allowing me to claim patent on SWAC directly). Here cold sea water is heat-exchanged with reservoir fresh water and then cold fresh water is pumped to various parts of city for various HVAC usages. Water aftering being used for cooling further is used for other purposes without circulating back to reservoir.
I thought it is silly to have reservoirs on both sides of Netravati estuary connected through subsea pipeline & other possible extensions and deleted that part in an earlier post of me here. Who knew anyone will aggrandize it as Sarovar Maalaa and claim patent? If anyone wants such patent then he has to do following things. Sarovar Maalaa will be a water grid system just like power grid system. There may be many ways to connect reservoirs. Subsea pipelines without gates can allow continuous flow to preserve same water level in all reservoirs otherwise gates may be opened from one reservoir to another as per needs. Any fault say crack in connecting pipeline or crack in dyke or malfunctioning of any lock can have disasterous effect like emptying or salinating all connected reservoirs say in a week or a month if preventive measures are not available. Reason for a fault can be anything like ship/boat collision, earthquake, tsunami, terrorism, construction & manufacturing fault. What is important is Fault Detection & Isolation. Detection may be through abnormal changes in salinity, flow rate, water level etc - some more hints are
here. Valves & pipes should be of marine grade as they will be in contact with saline water although they are used for carrying fresh water. No objection if the professor claims patent for Fault Detection & Isolation System after developing it with all neccessary hardware & software. Can take help from NITK to develop such a system.
The above comment is made on assumption that reservoirs will be connected by subsea pipelines as shown in diagram in ResearchGate paper link refered at the top of this post. Otherway to connect reservoirs is to connect through inland pipeline assuming water will be pumped to this pipeline so that you need not worry about marinegrade requirement for pipes and pumping can be stopped when leak is discovered. One more way is to pump water to freshwater inland waterway - Kerala government is constructing inland waterway but I don't know whether it is freshwater or saline water (if it is freshwater then there will be evaporational losses, if it is saline water then surrounding soil will become saline unless channel wall is waterproof) as I have not gone through project to that extent -
KSINC,
National Waterway 3 -
Inland waterways gets push in Karnataka. Also I don't know whether freshwater can be transported through waterway while vessels are moving over it.
Earlier since I had not noticed this wikipedia link with a diagram of Kalpasar
coastal reservoir I had to write a lot in explanation. But now the diagram can be used as a reference. In this post I will use word Kalpasar reservoir to mean Kalpasar diagram in wikipedia as on this date and Netravati reservoir to mean third/last diagram of Netravati reservoir drawn by me. 'Chain of reservoirs' means Sarovaara Maalaa like chain but of small reservoirs. Since many of ideas are expected to be borrowed from Kalpasar project to proposed project here I am making a note of my doubts & observations on Kalpasar project.
- Whether there is double dyke between tidal basin (saline reservoir) and freshwater reservoir? (this doubt is applicable only if we want to exloit tidal energy also through Netravati reservoir).
- It is preferable to use mechanical/hydraulic lift instead of lock 2 for transporting boats between fresh water reservoir (fresh water reservoir can even be empty) and sea because of height differences and even for boat movements between tidal basin and freshwater reservoir. Note we are mixing up considerable amount of saline water with fresh water or vice versa if height difference is considerable and frequency of boat movements is high. (do we want such boat movements through Netravati reservoir?)
- Fresh water is used to fillback area between parallel dykes whenever ships enter or exit the port so that port area water height is higher (about 1 meter higher) than seawater. (applicable if we need deepsea port here).
- A negligible/considerable part of water between parallel dykes, which may be more saline than freshwater, may seep into freshwater reservoir if water height of freshwater reservoir falls considerably. Water is more saline than freshwater because you are opening locks for ships as seaport is between sea and freshwater reservoir. (applicable if we need deepsea port here).
- What type of lock is used for moving ships between sea and port area between dykes? Single gate? What are possibility of lock failure? Is there any failsafe state for lock? (further explanation follows)(applicable if we need deepsea port here).
In case of big reservoirs like Kalpasar any disatrous event which leads to mixing of seawater with fresh water may lead to huge water losses. In case of isolatable chain of small reservoirs (chain = maalaa; small reservoirs but large in numbers) freshwater loss & other disasters may be minimum.
Tsunami waves hitting dykes (if dyke does not have sufficient height) may fill coastal reservoir with sea water though parallel internal dyke can protect against such occurance depending upon distance between parallel dykes. Anyway we can not avoid tsunami effects on deepsea port between parallel dykes. (Which seaport is safe from tsunami?). Total effect on chain of small reservoirs depends upon extent of shore width affected by tsunami.
Cyclonic/hurricane waves may also die in area between dykes. I think hurricane waves will occur for a longer time than tsunami waves. No idea what will happen if tsunami and hurricane occur together! (do we know what is the maximum height for tsunami or hurricane waves?).
In summary parallel dykes will ensure freshwater reservoir will not become saline neither by seepage from sea nor by tsunami/hurricane waves but may become slightly saline due to mixing of seawater & freshwater in port area due to ship movements in case we want to have a port in between dykes.
In case of big reservoir,
disaster may be big if both parallel dykes break and sea water gushes into reservoir when it is nearly empty creating an event similar to a tsunami. This effect will be maximum if occurs during high tide & when reservoir is empty (what about during hurricane?). In case of small reservoirs the effect may be minimum as it is has lesser height. Or is it big reservoirs less dangerous than small ones? Even lock malfunctions can lead to similar events.
Is there double dyke protection against disaster? ie, whether both dykes have to break for disaster to occur? What if we have port & then lock for ship movements? If lock is single door then it is just single dyke protection. Okay, what should be failsafe state for lock? If it is 'gate open' state then double dyke is nothing but single dyke as against seawater's gushing entry to empty freshwater reservoir. If it is 'gate closed' state then if a ship is just passing through gate when failure occurs and gate is trying to close due to failure is not good for ship (I don't care for any
interlock ensuring this not to happen because it just considers safety of ship but not safety against dyke breaking disaster; I do agree that proper interlock should take 'gate closed' state as failsafe against dyke breaking disaster without worrying about ship as probability of both events happening simultaneously is very low). I don't want to explore here whether double dyke protection is possible if there are more than one gates/doors in the
lock interlock system. Let us forget about this as there is no plan for reservoir-based deepsea port in Mangaluru.
Disasters has to be identified for whole lifecycle of the reservoir. We should be even able to perform reservoir's last rights (decommission) without any disaster!
Disasters can occur even if we use best technology to construct dykes against effects of earthquake, tsunami etc and minimize disaster probability and even if we have non-corrupt engineers & contractors. Inspite of least probability it is better to study all possible hazards and their effects. Many of above disaster studies including other disasters like erosional effects which are posted earlier can be done through simulational modeling. Note that disaster need not be life loss; even fresh water loss or any other asset loss is also a disaster. (fresh water loss in disastrous even for parched city mafia if they encroach all remaining waterbodies of their dear city for expanding their business! on identification of such a disater a yellow alert can be issued to the mafia by including the parched city in disater/hazard map). Good that NITK is having simulation team & disaster study team now to help if needed. Disasters can be identified with severity versus probability. (Don't worry guys Mangaloreans can generate enough voice against this at international level as population residing in this region mainly of religious minority).
In the next coastal reservoir conference NITK can also discuss advantages and disadvantages of big coastal reservoirs like proposed Kalpasar versus small coastal reservoirs connected through pipelines. Definitely big ones costs less to build for having same storage capacity as chain of reservoirs.
There is one more thing to note on Netravati coastal reservoir (refer my last picture). Mangaluru receives above 3500 mm of rain annually during raiy season. So even sea may also receive same 3.5 meters amount of rain annually. Hence, if we assume coastal reservoir is having an average height of 7 meters (0 meters at shore and around 14 meters at deep sea; average height depends upon other things like shape and seabed topography) then almost 50% of reservoir will be filled by rain itself and burden on Netravati may be only other 50%. Hopefully if it rains more when reservoir is full than we just need to open flood gates (in addition we may also stop flow from river channel; but opening flood gates may reduce burden on flooding estuary to a small extent) to avoid disaster. Water will flow from reservoir to sea if water level of sea is less than that of reservoir through parallel dykes. To ensure this we need to allow reservoir to occupy additional land on shoreside. I think water can also be allowed to flow from two extreme shoresides of reservoir into sea passing through both parallel dykes.
Note that we are going to construct dyke height and shoreside length keeping in mind that sea will raise by 2 meters in next 100 years. Provision should be there to build additional height and length as per time needs. I don't know whether we need to spend money to build additional height for protecting fresh water from rare tsunami/hurricane waves. (why am I saying hurricanes are rare even after seeing so many
cyclones in this year itself?).
Is it neccessary to filter/desilt water before allowing it to flow into reservoir? What are advantages and disadvantages of desilting water?
Alternatively we can construct 'offshore reservoirs' away from shore say 10 km where sea is shallow (seabed depth not more than say 14 meters). This should reduce severity of shoreside disaster caused by probable breakage of dykes though boats on sea may suffer if ever disaster happens. Water is taken from land to reservoir by subsea pipes and viceversa. Rain falling on sea is anyway stored in the reservoir. This can be implemented even near cities which don't have rivers but get good rain and have shallow sea nearby by harvesting rainwater in offshore reservoir. We have to connect pipelines from terraces of the buildings to the reservoir. Yes, we have to build extra rainwater harvesting utility pipelines. (Can we use same pipeline to fill & unfill reservoir?). 'Offshore reservoirs' are good for shoreline cities having no other way for rain harvesting. Extra pipeline means extra load on public space but under current situation, to reduce level of flood water flowing on roads, we any how need more drainage utilities (
Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’,
Tokyo’s massive flood protection facility might not be “enough” due to climate change). NITK may also develop IoT based smart rainwater filters so to control flow from a centralized command; for example, not to harvest first-rain water of unclean terrace. Leak detection & other things are as discussed earlier.
Anyway we are unable to get money for Pashchima Vahini itself then how can we get money for coastal reservoir for which cost is increased on every visit by the professor? Whether the parched city mafia will fund the project directly?
‘More disasters waiting to happen in Western Ghats’
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Mining activities, timber mafia, construction of resorts and homestays, hydroelectric projects, and Yettinahole project, have damaged the ghats to a great extent. If they are not controlled, the coastal belt will remain drought-hit permanently as the Netravati will go dry, he said.
Increased human interventions and unscientific projects on the ghats have resulted in the landslips in Kodagu last year and this year, and the same was extended to Chikkamagaluru and Dakshina Kannada this year, he said. Incidentally, no comprehensive study has been taken up on the same, he said.
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Karnataka has an efficient mechanism to tackle disasters
Seismic hazard: Scholar says planning needed for Mangaluru
I don't know whether Mangaluru has an Earhtquake Risk Assessment & Management Plan as good as
Ahmedabad (I don't know whether this document is latest one). Though the above document page#14 shows Mangaluru in Low Hazard Zone
wikipedia shows in Moderate Damage Risk Zone (Zone 3). I don't know which one is authentic. Let it be so.
My worry is whether recharging ground by excessive rainwater harvesting is going to increase severity of earthquake disasters? If so, which are the places going to suffer most in Mangaluru? How buildings near rivers, streams & on
paleochannels or on
subterranean rivers/
lakes are affected? Whether there is any safe storage level for ground water? We have to worry about old buildings which are not constructed as per recent risk mitigation plan. Whether risks for these non-complaint buildings can be reduced with a proper monitoring of ground water level?
If more ground water recharging is done near westernghat how it is going to effect flood, landslip and earthquake severity there? Whether there would be any underground flood? I don't know whether water will flow subterranean to main river beds or any other things like paleochannels or subterranean rivers before flowing into sea. If water flow to rivers then definitely rivers flooding possibility for lesser rain may also increase.
Landslips in Dakshina Kannada
Hills sliding, time for Gadgil relook
Landslips in Karnataka's Charmadi ghat claim 100 acres of forest
Landslide, flood destroyed 100 acre of reserve forest
Real-time monitoring of groundwater in the offing
Resources being pooled to predict rain and tackle floods
Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
What kind of real time monitoring is useful to mitigate landslips or hills sliding severity? Whether underground water level can be monitored from space using satellites with good space/color resolutions? (
BITS students fired up to realise their space dream).
I think we have to stop big developments near Westernghat slopes. For example, instead of in towns like Ujire developments can happen near Uppinangadi.
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Originally Posted by BolliBatlu
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What it means is offshore desalination plant, with least effect on marine life, with 10 MLD capacity costs Rs. 2000 crores. So, 100 MLD will cost around Rs. 20,000 crores. Only adavantage Mangaluru has is sea is not shallow like Chennai so you need not go to 40 km from the coast to find the required depth for intake of deep sea cold water.
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The last statement of me is wrong. Distance may be more for Mangaluru compared to Chennai.
Let us now get serious about last bullet point listed in the begining of this post. NITK being already working on coastal reservoirs can further widen their scope for developing indigenous Sea Water Air Conditioning (SWAC) technology. Later when NIOT is established in Mangaluru it can take over further research on Coastal Reservoir & SWAC (& lot more on NIOT to be discussed once it is materlilized in Mangaluru). I think we can have the professor as director for this NIOT so that he can continue his research work on Sarovar Maalaa by staying in the shore of the reservoir enjoying his creation. We can also have '
Central Institute of Coastal Engineering for Fishery' near by after shifting it from the parched city (only Ghanshyam & real estate mafia know why is this institute located in the parched city).
One thing we want to know is to what an extent we can exploit hydrothermal energy of the sea. (some people say thorium is the solution for every fuel problem. some people are busy exploring for helium-3 in moon. some people say ocean has several thousands times more energy than what human needs. but so far human beings have not developed technology to exploit these energy except for a few like SWAC).
District cooling system needs cold water available in sea at a depth of around 500-1000 meters. We don't know whether
GSI is conducting survey only for sea floor minerals or whether it has surveyed for ocean energy resources also. Whether we can exploit cold water of sea for district cooling in a sustainable way? (ucold water undercurrent, in our case may be from south pole, is a continuous phenomenon; south pole cools in every winter; hence energy is sustainable in general). DK has hot springs (but we don't have district heating requirement so to utilize available thermal energy), if seabed has them then water will also be hot (central indian ridge is far away to effect temperature; exploitation of their heat is a separate subject altogether). Question is at what an distance & depth enough cold water is available.
Sea Water Air Conditioning - Makai Ocean Engineering
Bora Bora Deep Sea Water Air Conditioning
Be Green 2: Seawater air conditioning
Imagine energy savings if we can exploit a good percentage of HVAC cooling energy requirement of country through SWAC. I think many cities in Ratnagiri-Kochin, Paradip-Chennai corridors can exploit SWAC. Of course we need more people to stay near these resources if their benefits have to be exploited to a larger extent. Note that currently Kochin-Ratnagiri belt is under negative population growth and suffering from brain drain problems. NITK, GSI and other institutes like Mangalore University (oceanology department), Goa Oceanography Institute may also contribute to this work. What I think is Goa, Kerala are in a better position to exploit SWAC than Mangaluru as the parched city real estate mafia does not like any threat to their interest. (communist Kerala may be more interested in sending people to the parched city through either Bundipur highway or Kaniyur railwayline)(not keen on east coast which is under greater climate change threat). Sagarmala project does not even have plan to exploit sea floor minerals. What we need is a thorough study of Ratnagiri-Kochin corridor advantages/disadvantages compared to other proposed indusrial corridors on energy/fuel costs (including transportation costs - for example, waterways are cheaper, electricity transmission costs etc), other resource costs, climate change costs, disaster costs, security costs etc (including construction, operation, maintenance, rebuilding costs of all infrastructures). NITK can in colloboration with other institutes like IIM Kozhikode and IIT Goa come up with a report on this corridor. If the corridor can prove to be more cost productive taking into consideration all costs then it can relieve four tier-1 cities in the central vertical line of India from pain of neagtive effects of economic agglomeration by attracting IT/BT industries towards it. Negative population growth in productive regions will definitely affect economic growth of the country.
I think other than for cooling buildings SWAC can even be exploited for cooling of walkways, public plazas/squares, tourist places etc. As far as freshwater is concerned SWAC can alternatively use any other water sources apart from coastal reservoir.
KIOCL has plan for DISP pipe manufacturing. It can extend this plan for marine grade
insulated pipe 2 manufacturing (I think seawater used for cooling going back to see through outerlayer of pipe provides better insulation for cold seawater coming in to SWAC through inner pipe). One worry of SWAC and subsea pipelines is mostly they use plastic components though of high grade.
Alright. Final question is what do with all animation models we have developed for studying the disasters of Netravati Reservoir? Here is Bollywood storyline to mint money from it.
Story has a hero from Coast Guard Training Academy. A heroine from Mangaluru University. Another heroine from MIT Manipal. A Hybrid Robot named 'Saagara Talesha' (सागर तल+ ईश) abbreviated as Talesha - an advanced version of Mars rover. And villans. Let me tell you climax of the story in the begining itself so that you are not lost in suspense - the story is all about saving people at Netravati Reservoir shore from reservoir wall breakage disaster which happens when reservoir is empty during a seasonal drought. Let us make the story more sensational by generating the disaster from earthquake and in addition add a hurricane. To know how exactly the hero saves people you need to contact the ex-MP mentioned in this news piece -
MP asks Centre to set up Coast Guard Academy in Mangaluru. I will charge money only for the rest of the story. There are many sensational flashbacks in the story.
First flashback, the person who created Hybrid Robot is MIT Manipal young lady professor who studied there itself and joined the institute later. Hybrid Robot being bionic and mechatronic hybrid can use any of electricity, mitochondrial, photosynthesis and chemosynthesis technology for its energy requirements. In technical terms robot is a hybrid unmanned autonomous underwater vehicle with both marine and terrestrial capabilities. A vehicle which can fly like an aircraft in water & air and work on ocean floor and also ground. It can breathe through lungs, gills & skin and also has photoautotrophic and chemoautotrophic biosynthesis capabilities. Obviously it can operate in hydrothermal vents also. A special type of machine developed to explore sea in high depths of ocean. Its brain is also a hybrid computer - one half is biocompuer and the other half is another kind of nanocomputer. That is Talesha. Actually many of its capabilities will be exploited in sequels to this story. For this story it is enough to understand that it can work inside and outside ocean. As in Kollywood movie heroine falls in love with her creation. I have actually copied this romantic part of the story not from Kollywood but directly from Hollywood.
Second flashback, the young & handsome hero, a lecturer in coast guard academy, is in deep love with the Oceanology PhD student of Mangalore University. There will be many romantic songs. Most important one is surf dance in Sasihitlu where hero and heroine stretch their hands like in Titanic movie while surfing inside a coiling hurricane wave. Another one is bungee jumping dance in Saint Mary's island where hero and heroine sing a song while bungee rope oscillates up and down - sorry I forgot to say they were just watching oscillating bungee rope while singing.
Third flashback, this is the most important & most suspensive flashback of all. This is about the real estate mafia. Mafia had finally encroached all lakes successfully in the parched city. They did not have any more waterbody left in the parched city for further encroachment. After reading about Sarovar Maalaa project on skyscraperpage their thirst increased and they contrived a plan to encroach vast Arabian sea and illegally mine Sarovar Maalaa water in colloboration with mining mafia. The plan was for building a new unparched offshore satellite city of the parched city. You know at that time there were water wars happening throughout the world. Water had become more scarce commodity than crude oil. Iron ore had become such a cheap commodity because of technolgy advancement in seabed mining and hence mining mafia had to shift from illegal iron ore mining to illegal water mining business. The real estate mafia had already built a doughnut shaped city on Arabian sea. Actually this city was designed to harvest all rainwater falling on city in a reservoir in the circular central region. The real estate mafia had plans to build a cluster of such offshore cities whose central reservoirs are connected through subsea pipelines to each other. Now unless I move to next flashback nobody will understand the story.
Fourth flashback, the mafia had deployed biosharks (shark robots) all over Tulunadu seas. Yes, your guess on the source from where the mafia purchased biosharks is absolutely correct. These biosharks had different roles - drillers, dredgers, pumpers, fighters, bombers, multirole etc. The biosharks were highly stealthy not even detectable by any sonar or radar as they simulated normal sharks perfectly. They used to switch on in-built mechatronic system aiding their roles in the times of need only. There will be some fighting masaalaa scenes (including Tulunadan Kalaripayattu) between Talesha (the hybrid robot) and biosharks but due to time limits I will not detail them here. Main role currently assigned by mafia to biosharks is to drill Netravati reservoir for stealing water. Their plan was to pump water from this reservoir to their own offshore city reservoir. The stolen water from there used to be smuggled into other countries in need. On that day biosharks had to complete the drilling work. They were in hurry. You know hurry is worry. Suddenly the reservoir wall cracks!
All I can say is Talesha had to do a lot of diving works and his gills & lungs were in perfect synchronization for entire duration of the calamity. You can guess the rest of story easily but of course for complete story you need to contact the ex-MP.
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