Deccan Chronicle 26.09.2009

Water levels in city reservoirs plummet

Chennai
Sept. 25: Water levels have dipped at the three reservoirs of Chennai, Poondi, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam, which give much of the drinking water to the city.

As of Friday, the water level at Poondi reservoir stands at 393 million cubic feet (mcft), while it was 689 mcft in the same period last year.

While the level is 1,434 mcft at Red Hills, compared to 1,622 mcft during 2008, the storage at Chembarambakkam stood at 531 mcft as against 1,291 mcft last year.

Mr Swaran Singh, chairman and managing director of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board, assured that there would be no water shortage in the city since the southern and western districts of the state have received more rains. Moreover, the onset of monsoon is expected soon, he said. “We have some issues in supply of water to Hosur, Dharmapuri, Vellore and Krishnagiri, which receive water from Palar River,” he said. “However, we have initiated some projects to supply water to these areas.”

Mr Shiv Das Meena, managing director of the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, said that though it was a fact that the storage in the reservoirs had come down when compared to last year, the department had taken all possible measures to avert any crisis.

He pointed out that the department was maintaining normal supply of water to the city and its tail-end areas through piped water supply and trucks.
“Chennai gets water from Veeranam and Krishna projects, which helps us to compensate for the poor storage in these reservoirs,” he said.

“We have been receiving inflow of 650 cusecs in Veeranam, which makes the situation better. With the onset of monsoon that replenishes our reservoirs, we assure Chennaiites that there would not be any disruption in the supply of drinking water.”

The Hindu 22.09.2009

4 days of water supply realised from Kandaleru

K.Lakshmi

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.