Large quantities of water from Krishna River in Chennai now
Posted on: 12/Dec/2019 9:30:26 AM
The water managers could heave a sigh of relief now!!
This time, large amounts of water from Krishna River basin had reached Chennai and this is the first time in nearly 5 years of time this has happened.
It must be taken into account that till Wednesday morning 3000 tmcft of water had been realised at the Poondi reservoir. It is known that from this reservoir the water gets distributed to the Chennai residents. It was later mentioned by a senior official belonging to MWD that Poondi reservoir till 2014-15 has received 5.5 tmcft from Krishna River in AP and each year AP government has been releasing an average of 1tmcft and a maximum of 2tmcft.
He explained how in this year AP had good amount of rains and how due to the rains water levels in Somasila and Kandaleru reservoirs have increased to 69 tmcft and 45 tmcft respectively against a full capacity of 73.89 tmcft and 68.03 tmcft. It is worthy to note that in the past the officials belonging to MWD, PWD and TWAD met their counterparts in AP twice and requested them to release atleast 8 tmcft.
The requested was accepted by the official of AP but the point is there is no guarantee that it would be released. Release would depend on the rainfall in AP and this was as per an official.
The storage levels at Poondi reservoir was 1593 tmcft against the full capacity of 3231 tmcft and this was because of the regular inflow from the Krishna River of AP. There was an inflow and outflow of 837 cusecs. It must not be forgotten that in 2018 on 11th December the water storage at Poondi reservoir was just 377 mcft and in November 2017 it was 990 mcft.
The metro water department could feel happy and breathe easy now because of good storage levels in the Poondi as well as in the Red Hills reservoirs. Superb piece of information is till the month of July in 2020 the present storage levels could ensure a reasonable water supply.
The water crisis situation might not be that bad in 2020 as it was in 2019. There would be significant inflow of water in other reservoirs like Chembarambakkam and Cholavaram as rains are expected in Chennai city in the next week. Against a full capacity of 3645 mcft Chembarambakkam had 1205 mcft and Chlolavaram had 201 mcft against total capacity of 1080 mcft.
