The A & N Islands in the Bay of Bengal and located to be 6° North Latitude and 94° longitude in the form of narrow broken chain aligned north - south. Port Blair, the capital of these islands, is 1190KM, 1255Km, 1200 KM from Kolkata, Chennai and Vizag respectively.

The total geographical area of these Islands is 8249 Sq.km. of which 7163 Sq.km. is covered under reserved and protected forest. The topography is generally characterized by low hill ranges having narrow coastal structures. 

Though the annual rainfall in these islands exceeds 3000mm,the only existing reservoir at Dhanikhari fails to meet the demand of potable water in peak summer seasons. As regards the ground water usage, our experience in the mainland is the salinity increase in the MINJUR (Tamil Nadu)- Mangrol- Churwad- Porbander belt along Sawrastra coast by excess ground water pumping. Hence the chance of ground water becoming saline especially in these islands is always existing. By considering these aspects , creations of esturian reservoir is the only solution for ensuring fresh water availability for longer run. 

The Flat Bay is such proposal which shall create an artificial reservoir by connecting Crown Point and Mithakhari of Port Blair. The reservoir shall encompass an area of------- and shall be able to hold ---- million litre of potable water. These shall involves:

a) Construction of Barrage from Mithakhari towards crown point.

b) An earthen bund running north - south connecting the point of barrage/ bridge to the shore at the southern point of flat Bay and peripheral embankment all round.

c) Canal training works at the intake points were the stream flows it to the lake.

d) Pump house for slurry pumps and supply pumps.

e) Locating and construction of suitable water treatment plant and pumping arrangements upto treatment plant. 

After execution of above said works, salt water from the impoundment will be removed from the reservoir. Pumping water continuously from the deepest part of the impoundment will speed up the process. It will take about 4 months to pump out the saline water. There will be however salt in the sediments which will diffuse into the overlying water over a period of time . The time needed for the diffusion to reduce to a level at which the impact on salinity in the overlying water is negligible for water supply purpose will depend on the nature and depth of the bed sediments. It is likely that most of the salt will diffuse out of the sediments in the first 3 years.

A similar schemes was studied and adopted to help to solve Honk Kong's water storage problems. It is known as the plover Core Water Supply Schemes. The reason for the scheme are very similar to those of Port Blair. 2100 m length of dam was constructed during 1965. The sea water was pumped out and water was taken into supply from reservoir in 1967 i.e. not more than 2 years after completion of dam. In line with these projects Flat Bay Projects, with careful and planned management of the impoundment process it should be possible to obtain potable water with in two years after completion of barrage.