City staring at water crisis, piped water supply likely to be hit

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

The city is likely to face a water crisis as Metro Water officials are struggling to maintain a steady piped water supply with water levels in major reservoirs dwindling.

With the monsoon expected to hit the city by next month, Metro water officials are urging the people to consume less piped water, which is likely to be hit soon if the rain gods fail to shower their blessings on the city.

Currently, the four reservoirs – Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam have less than 25 per cent of total water available for the city during the summer.

Following the dwindling of water levels in the reservoirs, Metro water has worked out a contingency plan to provide the city with ground water resources. Officials say that the city will be depending more on desalination plant and ground water supply once the reservoirs get depleted.

Officials say water will be made available to residents through the desalination plants in Minjur and Nemelli besides the pipeline from Veeranam which will provide 25 MLD of water.

Metro Water sources also said they will be getting 25 MLD water from the well fields in Poondi and Tamaraipakkam. The city is also likely to get water from the Neyveli acquifers once the situation aggravates.

Interestingly, during the peak summer, the ground water situation is much better and it is believed that many households have to rely more on the groundwater than the piped water. There are also plans to readjust water resdistribution system besides augmentation of water tankers. But sources feel the contingency plan could not succeed unless Chennaites also come forward to conserve water and follow rainwater harvesting.

Interestingly, the city is also banking on Krishna water. Water Resources Department sources has said that Chennai will be getting around 300 cusecs of water per day from the first week of June once the temporary works by Andhra Pradesh irrigation department in Uppalamadagu canal near Kalalahasti in Andhra Pradesh gets over. As per an interstate agreement reached in 1976, Tamil Nadu is eligible for 15tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water between April and June under the Telugu Ganga project.