Deccan Chronicle 15.12.2009

Chennaiites heading for summer water crisis

Dec. 14: The city is heading for a terrible water crisis coming summer. With the northeast monsoon failing to fill up the city reservoirs, Chennaiites are facing ‘double trouble’ as the city is most unlikely to receive Krishna water from Kandaleru reservoir at least for the next couple of months.

The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to close the Kandaleru reservoir for two months to carry out maintenance works in the upstream of Krishna canal, a senior state PWD (public works department) official told this paper, preferring anonymity. The decision is yet to be officially informed, he added.

In fact, water managers here were not surprised wh-en protesters closed the slu-ice gates of Kandaleru res-ervoir two days back in pr-otest against home minister Chidambaram’s statements supporting a separate Telangana state as their Andhra Pradesh counterparts have already kept them posted about the Kandaleru closure. Krishna water was released only on September 15, against the scheduled July 1 owing to maintenance works.

As per the 1983 inter-state water-sharing agreement reached between the two states, Tamil Nadu is entitled to 12 tmcft Krishna water, but this year only 4 tmcft has been realised so far. While 4 tmcft would be released between January and April, the remaining 8 tmcft would be supplied between July and October to help Chennai. With Chembarambakkam, Poondi, Puz-hal and Cholavaram reservoirs, which have a joint full storage capacity of 11.057 tmcft, having only 6.6 tmcft as on date and the higher ev-aporation rate and increased summer consumption, water managers are predicting a tough summer in 2010.