Chennai: Water scarcity may resurface
Chennai – The inflow of Krishna Drinking Water Supply Project (KDWS) in Andhra Pradesh is decreasing which signs the water shortage possibility in Chennai city.
There are four primary reservoirs in Chennai. These are Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam. Currently, these four reservoirs have around 4,631 million cubic feet of water (mcft) which implies that they are having only 42 per cent of their capacity.
This amount of water is sufficient for next four months as the current rate of water supply is 831 million litres a day. The day temperature in Chennai city is normal nowadays which reduces evaporation of water in water bodies.
Few days back, water from Veeranam tank was stopped for want of resources. Thus Krishna Drinking Water Supply Project played an important role for meeting the water needs of the Chennai city. The Krishna water also supplies water to agricultural lands for irrigation purposes in Andhra Pradesh (AP) before releasing in Chennai.
Recently, it was noticed that the entry point of the Kandaleru Poondi canal in Uthukottai, Tiruvallur district, got less than 50 cubic feet of water per second (cusecs). But earlier it used to receive 400 cusecs of water from the Kandaleru reservoir in Andhra Pradesh and negligible amount of Krishna water reaches city.
A study of Krishna project was conducted by a team of officials from the Water Resources Department (AP) on February 4, 2013. They inspected the canal and checked for illegal tapping en-route.
A request to increase the inflow of Krishna water would be placed after inspection. To maintain the needful drinking water supply in Chennai city, about 250- 300 cusecs of water would be required.
This situation in Chennai reminds of the water crisis in 2003 due to insufficient rains. Water was supplied alternate days. In 2005 the situation got stabled due to good monsoon and it continues till 2012.
From July 2012, around 4,500 mcft of water has been supplied to Chennai by Krishna water. This amount of water is equal to five months of water supply to the city.
According to officials, Kandaleru reservoir maintained the storage level at 40-50 per cent of the four reservoirs ‘s capacity. It saved their resources from fast depletion.
Since the canal faced damage at Ubbalamadugu near Varadapalayam, the supply to Chennai has been restricted to less than 300 cusecs. The repair works has been initiated but things will get normal after minimum four months.
It is expected that the recently inaugurated second phase of Krishna project might solve crisis problem to some extent.
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