Chennai: Water crisis in capital Chennai and northern Tamil Nadu is all set to continue for two more months, as the situation with major drinking water resources of Chennai looks negative.
Both Krishna in Andhra Pradesh and Veeranam in Cuddalore that supply water to Chennai await heavy rains which in turn will result in surplus inflow into reservoirs.
Only then water crisis can be addressed and the scenario has been studied in detail. In the event there are no rains in north Tamil Nadu, the possibility of providing adequate water to residents catering above 670 mld can be achieved only by October, admit water managers in Chennai.
There are no immediate signs of Andhra Pradesh releasing Krishna water as its reservoirs do not have adequate supply. The only hope is rains in Cuddalore to recharge Veeranam or release of water from Mettur to boost Veeranam from where water can be pumped for Chennai, the official said.
At present, a steady supply of 470 mld is maintained and this will not deteriorate further. The engineering teams are also planning to enhance the production capacity in Nemeli desalination plants and about 130 mld of water is tapped from agricultural wells, said a metro water official. By the mid of this month four MLD of water will be tapped from Porur for next 120 days and 30 MLD water which is daily pumped from Manngadu quarry sites and 70 MLD water from Neyveli mines will continue till the onset of monsoon, the official added.
“It has been more than two months since the supply of drinking water into my house sump. The only respite is recent showers and we are hoping for borewell supply to improve,” said Dhanendhar Kothari, a resident of Egmore.
Lorry contractors warned
Meanwhile, Chennai metro water managing director V Arun Roy on Tuesday directed the metro water squads to impose Rs 25,000 penalty and cancellation of the work order issued to hired contractors, if they were found diverting drinking water.
A press release from Chennai metro water said CMWSSB has constituted a squad to monitor the distribution of mobile water supply and prevent illegalities.
During the monitoring operations, the checking squad found that four tankers were involved in diverting the drinking water. Instead of supplying the water to residents, four hired contractors through their tankers diverted water to restaurants in Kanagam, Anna Nagar and Alandur. CMWSSB had also warned all the lorry owners in contract with Metrowater that the contract will be
cancelled with a fine if found involved in illegalities.
Water Levels in western, southern reservoirs up
Storage levels of reservoirs in western and southern districts show slight improvement after a period of seven months.
Good rains in Karnataka and western Tamil Nadu are helping Mettur, Bhavani Sagar, Mullaiperiyar, Papanasam, Manimuthar, Servalayar and Sholayar dams. These reservoirs have started receiving inflow confirming that the south west monsoon is gaining momentum. And if the rains continue water shortage for western Tamil Nadu can be addressed by next month, public works department sources said.
Karnataka catchment areas Kabini, Herangi, Hemavathy and Krishna Raja Sagar dam have received copious rains resulting in flow of Cauvery. Water is expected to arrive at Mettur by Friday.
KRS and Kabini are receiving close to 9,000 cusecs of water. Of this, 4,000 cusecs is released in to Cauvery for riparian states, PWD sources said.
The total storage capacity of all south Indian dams spread across Karnataka and Kerala have increased and TN dams are likely to witness significant increase by next week as rains have picked up in Valparai, Sathyamangalam, Krishnagiri and Nilgiris, sources added.
Meanwhile, Kadayanallur MLA Abubeckar blamed PWD engineers for not storing water in Servalar and Papanasam dams.
Due to delay in dam repair works PWD engineers are not able to store adequate water in Papanasam and Servalar dams built across Tamirabharani. In the past few days, water to about 14 feet has been drained into the river from both the dams, he alleged.
