From September, Chennai water crisis might start to ease
Posted on: 13/Aug/2019 9:54:58 AM
Chennai city has been facing worst water crisis now and this has turned the daily lives of many residents upside down. At this juncture, this piece of news would bring some delight on the faces of many Chennai residents.
It is now said that from the month of September the water crisis in Chennai would start to ease. Important information is two major sources of drinking water supply are waiting their share of inflows from water bodies upstream to boost their storage. The storage in the Veeranam tank in Cuddalore district plus in the Kandaleru reservoir in AP is likely to be pushed up by torrential rains in Kerala and in Karnataka.
Discharge from the Mettur dam is likely to increase in the next few days as the dam is filling up. Veeranam tank is expected to receive inflows in 10 days and this was according to the WRD. Inflow into the Mettur dam rose to 2.4 lakh cusecs and the storage touched 62 thousand million cubic feet or tmcft as against the capacity of 93 tmcft on Monday.
To cater to the irrigation and to the drinking water needs of the Cauvery delta districts, sluice gates of Metur dam would be opened. Information is water from this dam would be released to Keelanai through Kollidam River. Then the water would reach the Veeranam tank present in the tail-end of the Cauvery River system through Vadavar channel.
The capacity of the Veeranam tank is 1456 mcft and presently the tank has got storage of 57 mcft and that is lower than the capacity. A fortnight would be needed for the tank to reach its full storage if the tank receives an inflow of about 1000 cusecs.
It must be noted that Chennai metro water is continuing to draw nearly 180 mld from the Veeranam tank region, half the volume is sourced from the bore wells in the Paravanar river belt and Neyveli mines. It has been pointed out by sources that even if tank gets filled up it would replace the ground water sources and the same volume of 180 mld for Chennai would be maintained.
Important point is the water from the Veeranam tank would help sustain the present water supply. Krishna water is considered as import Article writringant for many water agencies in Chennai city due to the fact that it could improve the storage capacity of bone dry reservoirs to a huge extent. By this, Chennai city’s piped water supply would be stepped up.
Water from Srisailam reservoir hasn’t reached Somasila reservoir and Kandaleru reservoir and it might take another 2 weeks for the reservoirs upstream to get filled and water to be release to Chennai through Kandaleru- Poondi canal.
