Water supply from Krishna River to reach Tamil Nadu
To meet the water demand in Chennai city, water is being released from Krishna River from the Kandaleru dam today. The water from Krishna River, with a flow of 200cft per second, reached the border between the 2 states at Uthukkottai Zero point’.
Sever
summer has started. Because of evaporation and other reasons such as monsoon
failure, with the city’s main water reservoirs being at low levels, there has
been a water shortage in Chennai. 57 Crore Liters of water is being distributed
on alternate days on a rotation basis. Exploiting the situation, some
distributors sell water at Rs. 5/- per pot.
The
capacity of the 4 main reservoirs in Chennai City, (Poonid, Puzjhal,
Chembarambakkam, & Cholavaram) is 11,057 cmft. Currently the water capacity
is at 3,172 cmft. On the same day last year, it was 4,090 mcft. The capacity of
the Veeranam lake is 1,486 cmft. It is currently at 761 cmft.
The
water from Krishna River was stopped suddenly and PWD officials have taken up
this issue and pressed the AP government for its release. The AP officials
promised release of water at March end. Accordingly, Krishna River water was
released from Kandaleru dam on 25th March.
This
has reached the Uthukkottai ‘zero point’ and is expected to reach Chennai today
(29th March). It will
feed into the Poondi reservoir at 200cft per second. The flow is expected
to increase gradually to 100cft per second.. Krishna River water will flow till
the onset of North East monsoon.
A decision on resumption of daily water distribution will be taken after ensuring sufficient water levels in the main reservoirs.
