Krishna water reaches Zero Point after AP officials plug the leak

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

Chennai heaved a sigh of relief as the 200 cusecs of Krishna Water which was discharged from the Kandaleru reservoir in Andhra Pradesh on Monday trickled down to the zero point of the Kandaleru-Poondi canal at Oothukottai after Andhra Pradesh officials plugged a leak on the damaged portion of the Kandaleru Poondi canal at Ubbalamadugu by Saturday afternoon.

“The water reached the zero point around 2pm,” said a relaxed chief engineer of water resources department R Emaraj.

The chief engineer had anxious moments on Friday night when the water, which was expected to trickle around 9pm at the zero point of the Kandaleru-Poondi canal at Oothukottai, failed to arrive.

“It was then we got the news that there has been a breach in the repaired portion of the Kandaleru-Poondi canal at Ubbalamadugu,” said Emaraj. “We feared it could be a major breach and it could take nearly two days,” said Emaraaj while narrating the tense moments he underwent last night.

The chief engineer along with other Public Works Department officials immediately rushed off to the damaged site around 6am. “The Irrigation and Command Area Development Department officials saw to it that the leaks are plugged by 12 am and the water reached Zero Point by 2pm,” said Emaraaj. “We have received 10 cusecs of water by 2 pm as Andhra officials released only 150 cusecs of water following the leak. In the next two to three days we will be expecting 800 cusecs of water,” said Emaraaj. The water is expected to reach Poondi reservoir in the next 24 hours.

Krishna water supply to the city was stopped on April 10 to facilitate repair work on the damaged portion of the Kandaleru Poondi canal at Ubbalamadugu in Andhra Pradesh.

Currently, the city has about 1.4 tmc feet of water of which .8tmc feet is dead storage. As such the city only has .6 tmc feet of water to cater to Chennai’s thirst before the arrival of north-east monsoon.

 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.