Deccan Chronicle 17.09.2009

TN ill-equipped to store water

Chennai, Sept. 16: The decision to release Krishna water from Kandaleru has delighted city dwellers but little do they know that the state is not equipped to store the full quantum of water received from Andhra Pradesh.

Tamil Nadu is entitled to get 12 tmc ft (thousand million cubic feet) per annum as per the water sharing agreement reached between the two states in 1983. However, it has never got the stipulated full volume of water. In the last few years, Tamil Nadu had been receiving only a little over six tmcft.

A senior official of the water resources department said that the state was also responsible for the deficit as its public works department officials advise their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh to stop discharge once the four arterial reservoirs, Chembarambakkam, Poondi, Puzhal and Cholavaram, are filled to the brim. The four reservoirs can jointly store about 11.057 tmcft.

“Owing to the lack of adequate storage facilities, the state does not get the full quantum of water even when Andhra Pradesh is prepared to release more than usual,” observed a senior official of Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board.

Experts have been advising the government to renovate and utilise a few other city lakes to store Krishna water to solve this problem.

The former PWD minister, Mr Duraimurugan, had also made an announcement in this connection when MLAs raked up the issue in the last Assembly session. However, the idea has not been pursued.

Water resource department officials had also suggested the diversion of Krishna water into Palar to recharge the aquifers and help improve the ground water level in suburban Chennai and Kancheepuram. But this suggestion too has not been heeded.