C Shivakumar
Chennai:
As severe cyclonic storm ‘Helen’ is set to hit Andhra
Pradesh, water managers in the city are looking at the sky with hope of some
showers to tide off the impending water woes.
Although weathermen state that the city only has remote
chances of rain, Metro Water officials are still keeping their fingers crossed
even as the city has a deficit of 36 per cent rainfall from October to November
20, 2013 when compared to last year during the same period.
A senior Metro Water official said that the catchment areas
of the city this year has received less rainfall than the previous year adding
to the water woes of Metro Water which had been struggling to maintain the
supply of water in the city.
This year the water levels in the four reservoirs ---
Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam is only 3.5 thousand million
cubic (TMC) feet of water as compared to last year’s 4.44 tmc feet of water.
This could last for only four to five months.
Surprisingly, last year the city had inadequate rains and
this year it seems worse. With barely a week left for the month to end, Metro
Water officials feel this is really a bad sign and hope the fortune could turn
round provided the skies open up by next week.
Currently, Poondi has 729 million cubic feet, Cholavaram 165
mcft, Red Hills 1,647 mcft and Chembarambakkam 999 million cubic feet of water.
The city requires 830 mld of water per day and Metro water
has been supplying only 600 MLD of water per day with the limited resources. “The city could have run dry had it not been
for Minjur and Nemelli desalination plant, that was opened by Chief minister J
Jayalalithaa recently, besides 180 mld of water from Veeranam lake and another
40 to 50 MLD of ground water. This adds to 400 mld of water,” a senior Metro
water official said.
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