With the available resources, the city’s residents may enjoy daily water supply only till the end of July.

The
dipping storage in reservoirs and flow to the city’s storage structures
and water pressure in pipeline has been worrying residents. Residents
of areas such as Mogappair, West Mambalam and T. Nagar are already
complaining of less supply.

However, Water Resources Department
engineers are planning steps to tide over the shortage this summer with
the 4.2 thousand million cubic feet of water (tmcft) available in the
reservoirs.

Officials of various wings of the WRD gathered at a
meeting organised by the State Water Resources Management Agency
(SWARMA) on Friday — World Water Day. R. Emaraj, Chief Engineer, WRD
Chennai region, said the Krishna water release to the city has improved
on Friday. Andhra Pradesh authorities have assured the officials here
that at least five tmcft of the storage in Kandaleru reservoir would be
provided.

“We are also in the process of improving the overall
drinking water storage capacity from 12.5 tmcft to 14 tmcft by creating
new reservoirs by linking water bodies in Thervoy Kandigai and
Kannankottai and rejuvenating four lakes,” he said.

Even as
projects to construct checkdams across Kosasthalaiyar in Thirukandalam
and Nallathur are progressing, the department is considering 12 more
checkdams on various rivers in Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts.

Referring
to delays in acquiring lands for new reservoirs, R. Selvam, WRD’s Chief
Engineer, Plan Formulation, said forming reservoirs in rivers by
raising flood banks must be considered to avoid such problems.

While
K. Vijayakumar, WRD Chief Engineer, Operation and Maintenance,
highlighted the rehabilitation of 42 dams across the State, R.S.
Jagadish Chandra Babu, Chief Engineer State Ground & Surface Water
Resources Data Centre said that a web-based spatial decision support
system for Thamiraparani, Vaipar and Agniar basins is being developed to
help decide on what crop to grow. Measures are on for continuous
mapping of aquifers of the state, for better groundwater assessment.

R.
Subramanian, chairman of Cauvery Technical Cell, spoke on the disputes
faced in water sharing. “We must efficiently use water given to us from
other States to demand resources,” he said. WRD’s engineer-in-chief K.V.
Rajan and SWARMA’s director S.S. Rajagopal spoke on sharing of data on
water resources for judicious water management and achieving water
cooperation, the theme of this year’s World Water Day.