Chennai: With water level in the city’s reservoirs falling rapidly, Chennai metro water has stepped up drawing of water from agricultural wells in Tiruvallur districts to meet drinking water requirements of the city. At present, the water agency is drawing nearly 70 million litres a day (mld) from 250 agricultural borewells near Poondi, Tamaraipakkam and Minjur. The quantum of water being pumped out of borewells will be gradually increased to 90 mld to augment water supply to the city, said a senior metro water official. With the fall in Krishna water flow from Andhra Pradesh, the storage in reservoirs has dwindled rapidly to 12 per cent of their total capacity of 11,057 million cubic feet.
Due to the failure of monsoon and poor water storage in reservoirs, metro water is supplying drinking water to residents on alternate days at the rate of 600 million litres a day (MLD) as against the city’s daily water requirement of 830 MLD a day.“We are meeting 600 MLD requirement by sourcing 180 MLD water from Veeranam tank, 200 MLD from two desalination plants, 70 mld from borewells and the balance from city reservoirs,” said a metro water official.
Though metro water is supplying water on alternate days, residents in areas like Peravallur, Jawahar Nagar, Periyar Nagar and Gopal Reddy Colony complain about inadequate supply of water.
“With borewell water level going down, we are dependent on water tanker lorries to meet our daily needs,” said one of the residents.Metro water official said that adequate water being supplied to all the areas.“If there is a specific complaint, we will take action immediately,” the official said, adding that the number of tanker trips, including those on payment, has been increased to 4,600 daily to meet the demand.
