Metro Water adds 21 more water tankers to its fleet to quench the thirst of Chennai

Chennai:

Metro Water on Friday added 21 more tankers to its fleet of 335 tankers to quench the thirst of Chennaites as the water levels in the reservoirs are slowly dwindling.

A senior Metro Water official said that the new tankers has better capacity than the existing tankers and will be supplying 20,000 kilolitres of water per trip. It is expected that these water tankers would make 320 trips a day. Interestingly, these water tankers are different from the ones that exist in the fleet.

“Earlier tankers in the fleet had a capacity of 9,000 kilolitres per trip and 6,000 kilolitres per trip. The new tankers will have a capacity of 20,000 kilolitres per trip,” said the Metro Water official.

This is also part of Metro Water’s contingency plan to ensure that the city gets proper water supply as the water levels in the reservoir is dwindling. Currently the four reservoirs – Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam have about 25 per cent of total water available for the city during the summer.

The Metro Water spokesman said the need for new water tankers arose after metro water installed water tanks in street to provide people access to water.

To beat the heat this summer, Metro Water is trying to procure 15 MLD of additional water from Poondi and Tamaraipakkam wellfield besides getting additional 20 MLD of water from Neyveli acquifer and 55 MLD from other sources from Neyveli.

But all hopes are now on the monsoon. “If we get a normal monsoon, then the water crisis may be over. We are pinning our hopes on a thunder storm which is likely to bring rain on Monday,” a Metro Water source said.

Meanwhile, Water Resources Department sources told Express 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. But the city will be getting the full quota of 1,000 cusecs per day only after the total repair works gets completed.

“We will be getting the full quota of 1,000 cusecs of water per day once the total repair works gets over by August,” the WRD source said. The water supply from Kandleru reservoir was suspended following the repair works being undertaken on the canal. 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.