In 2021 summer season, Chennai residents wont face drinking water issues
Posted on: 14/Dec/2020 9:20:13 AM
In the next summer season, the Chennai residents won’t be able to see water trucks from CMWSSB carrying water to various places in the city.
The recent cyclones Nivar and Burevi have done enough and have brought huge amount of rains in Chennai. The city of Chennai and its surrounding places received 479 mm of rains and this has recharged city’s aquifers and has pushed the ground water tables in all the GCC zones. Truth is that the reservoirs that supplies water to Chennai are now brimming.
Mr. T. N. Hariharan, managing director of MW, spoke about how the water would be there till the end of the summer in 2021. On 12th December in 2019, the total water stored in 5 reservoirs like Poondi, Sholavaram, RedHills, Thervoykandigai and Kannankottai was just 5166 mcft. The total water stored has nearly doubled to 10311 mcft yesterday. The superb piece of information is that the water in the reservoirs alone would last for around 10 months.
The managing director highlighted that water in the Sikkarayapuram and in the Erumaiyur quarries would be kept as reserves. These 2 quarries provides water supply to Chennai city in the peak summer times of drought years is well known to us.
All the 15 zones belonging to the GCC have recorded an average increase of 1.65 m in the groundwater table since the month of October. From November 2019 to this year, there has been an average increase of 1.46 m in the ground water table levels and this was as per the data.
The water table has seen a rise of 0.54 m even in the places like Sholinganallur that does not have a piped water supply. In the November 2019, the ground water table was at 3.44 mm and currently it is at 1.89 m. It is revealed that the dependence on the 2 desalination plants at Nemmeli and at Minjur has come down.
