The Hindu 22.09.2009
4 days of water supply realised from Kandaleru
K.Lakshmi
| About 600 cusecs received on Monday |
Metrowater confident of maintaining daily supply
Storage level at Veeranam tank is also increasing
CHENNAI: The city has realised 104 million cubic feet of water (mcft) from the Kandaleru reservoir in Andhra Pradesh since Friday evening. This is equal to four days of water supplied by Chennai Metrowater.
Officials of Water Resources Department here said Uthukottai, the inter-State border of Kandaleru Poondi canal, received about 600 cubic feet of water per second (cusecs) on Monday. At present, about 1,500 cusecs of water is being released from Kandaleru reservoir and the discharge is expected to be stepped up in a few days.
As there was no rainfall in the region where the canal traverses, seepage of water in the almost dry canal bed could not be avoided. However, this would reduce in a few days, the officials said.
Officials of Chennai Metrowater said Poondi reservoir, which is being used as a storage point of the water discharged from the reservoir upstream, received an inflow of about 510 cusecs on Monday. The storage level in the Poondi reservoir has increased from 124 mcft registered two days ago to nearly 200 mcft.
Once a comfortable storage level is reached in Poondi reservoir, the water received would be diverted to other three reservoirs that feed the city. The four reservoirs have storage of only 2,429 mcft as against their capacity of 11 tmcft. Last year, the total storage was 3,553 mcft during the same period.
However, Metrowater is confident of maintaining its daily supply of 640-650 million litres of water to Chennai with the available resources.
Meanwhile, the storage level at Veeranam tank is also increasing with a steady inflow from Lower Anicut. Metrowater draws about 180 mld from the tank to augment the city supply.
The water agency proposes to reduce the extraction from borewells in Neyveli aquifer following the boost to the storage of the reservoirs.
The officials said it is, however, premature now to assess the volume of water to be received from Andhra Pradesh under the Krishna Water Supply project.
