Chennai: Chennai metro water had identified 300 farm wells in Tiruvallur and has issued work orders to tap groundwater for Chennai’s daily requirement.
Similarly, another 100 borewells and private wells in northern Tamil Nadu will be taken on rental to supplement the Veeranam channel that caters drinking water to south Chennai, a senior state official told DC. The catchment area of Paravanaru, Neyveli, Poondi and Thamaripakkam are under survey and all the existing borewells in these areas will be deepened at a cost of '5 crore to tap groundwater.
Across the state more than 600 agricultural wells and borewells will be tapped to meet the drinking water of all tier one cities. For all the 11 corporations in Tamil Nadu, a detailed summer project is finalised and works had already commenced for Chennai, Madurai, Vellore and Tuticorin areas, the official said.
Projects like restoration of existing borewells, creation of new wells and reducing the water loss due to old pipelines are proposed and the water augmention works will begin by the mid of this month. The overall expense to the government will be around Rs 900 crore and these works will be completed within the next four months, the official said.
Pointing out that all the four major reservoirs in Chennai have reached a dead storage, a senior metro water engineer said high power pumps will be used to tap the surface water that is now below 8 percent of their total carrying capacity. Last year, during the same time, the total storage of Chennai reservoirs stood around 9 tmc feet, but now it is less than one tmc feet, the engineer explained requesting Chennaiites not to waste water. Further, he warned that some areas in the north and suburban Chennai might get water only on alternative days.
“Last December, Chennai flooded and the surplus was drained. This year, the state is begging for water from neighbouring states thus exposing the poor storage mechanism in Tamil Nadu. Deepening borewells and desalination plants are short term solutions and will also degrade the environment”, said environmentalist R. Govindaraj of Exnora International.
