To quench the thirst of southern suburbs in Chennai, Kolavai Lake to be the source
Posted on: 18/May/2019 9:44:52 AM
There are many residents present in the southern suburbs beyond Pallavaram and Sholinganallur and these people are water starved is known. It is now revealed that the Kolavai Lake would be quenching the thirst of these residents belonging to these places. It must be noted that this Kolavai Lake is located 60 km south of Chennai in the Chengalpet district.
To revive the Kolavai lake, PWD or Public Works Department has got plans now and an amount of Rs 60 crores would be spent for this revival. The interesting information collected is Kolavai Lake is the 10th largest of the 14,000 odd lakes in the state of TN that are being maintained by the PWD.
It is worthy to mention that de-silting the lake to increase the capacity, treating the sewage that flows from Chengalpet municipality and bringing back boating facilities etc would be carried out by the PWD soon for the benefit of the people. In this project of reviving Kolavai Lake, municipal administration as well as the tourism department would also be playing their roles.
An official belonging to PWD expressed his thoughts and spoke about how the Kolavai Lake has not been de-silted for many years now and how this has resulted in the sedimentation by 22%. To have a total storage capacity of one TMC feet, the tank would be deepened by additional 2 feet. The point to be noted here is currently the water body with a depth of 15 feet has got a capacity to store 475 mcft of water. It is important to mention that inspite of poor monsoons in the year 2018,the Kolavai Lake is still nearly half full retaining 48 percent of capacity.
As per the project, an interceptor would be playing an important role of filtering waste from the Chengalpet municipality by means of STP or Sewage Treatment Plant. By this, the quality of the lake water would improve and then this water could be tapped and sent for distribution in southern suburbs beyond Pallavaram and Sholinganallur after further treatment.
Important information is the TN Water Supply and Drainage Board and Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board would plan for tapping the water later. It is important to note that Pallavaram, Sholinganallur and Tambaram have not come under the distribution network of metro water. The Kolavai Lake never dries up because about 25 upper tanks around Chengalpet drain surplus water into the Kolavai.
