Storage capacity of 3 lakes on Chennai fringes to be increased
Posted on: 22/Jan/2020 10:09:02 AM
Water resources department or WRD has proposed to increase the storage capacity of the 3 lakes present at Chennai city fringes. The main objective behind this is to mitigate floods following intense rains. For the initial phase of the project, three lakes falling under Tiruvallur district has been identified now by WRD. These three lakes are Kovilpadagai near Avadi, Amoor near Cholavaram and Gyanuru in Ponneri taluk.
The rains have become short and intense in the monsoon time in recent times and this has resulted in the water bodies getting filled up unexpectedly. It must be noted that this has made the nearby areas vulnerable to flooding.
The sudden water runoff brought o the lakes by the intense rains would be addressed by this project. Finally, the threat of inundation would be lowered. This project would also boost the water availability for irrigation and drinking water requirements.
Shutters would be provided above the weirs and by this, the surplus water would automatically flow out of the lakes. WRD wants to increase the storage to the maximum level instead of just de-silting the water bodies.
At present, water is stored only till full tank level that is atleast 2 feet less than the maximum water level. Once the lake`s storage touches the full tank level, the surplus water is allowed to discharge through weirs. The official belonging to WRD explained about how now the department is having plans to raise the capacity to maximum water level through various steps to augment storage.
By this, it would be possible to store an additional 50 percent of lakes original capacity. Kovilpadagai near Avadi des not serve as an irrigation source. WRD has got plans to provide more inlet channels and increase the storage capacity from the current 80 mcft to 120 mcft.
