Rainstorms bring reservoirs to life

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

The city’s water woes are likely to end soon if the rain gods continue to smile even as the reservoirs supplying water to the city are bubbling with life receiving 241 million cubic feet of water during the last two days of heavy rains, according to a Metro Water official.

The last two days of rains have brought much cheer to the city’s water distribution system which was struggling to meet the demands, said the official heaving a sigh of relief.

But then it all depends on the how good the monsoon would be, he said. On Sunday, the reservoirs received 126 million cubic feet of water and on Monday, an additional flow of 115 million cubic of water was received,” said a senior Metro Water official.

Interestingly, this is the first time the parched reservoirs have been getting water. “The water situation was well below 2tmcft. Now the reservoirs have water levels more than 2 tmcft,” he said.

Metro Water officials are also working to ensure that the city gets quality drinking water. “We have increased the daily sampling of residual chlorine. Besides the 2,500 daily sampling of the water in different localities, we are also undertaking joint sampling with Chennai Corporation on Tuesdays and Fridays,” he said.

Interestingly, Metro Water will also be holding joint meeting Corporation health officials at zonal levels to ensure quality water supply, he said.

Metro water has removed chronic obstruction and has carried out desilting along 65 km long sewage pipeline besides replacement of 20 km of pipeline which results in contamination the water. “The work is nearly over,” he said.

He also said that provisions are being made to have power supply 24 hours in the sewage pumping station. “We have installed and hired generators for all the sewing stations,” he said.

He said of 218 sewage pumping stations, Metro Water has 161 generators and it has hired additional 57 generators as a precautionary measure as the flow in the sewage would increase during the rains.

The water supply to the city improved recently following the city getting water from Veeranam lake and Krishna water being released from Kandaleru Dam in Andhra Pradesh

Reservoir                      Full capacity                  Storage      
Poondi                         3231 mcft                      225 mcft      
Cholavaram                   881 mcft                        75mcft
Red Hills                      3300 mcft                        1190 mcft
Chembarambakkam     3645 mcft                        749 mcft
Veeranam                     1465mcft                         956.70mcft

Total            12522 mcft            3189 mcft