Krishna water for Chennai to be delayed
Kandaleru reservoir has too little water
By : k. karthikeyan
Update: 2014-10-09 06:27 GMT
Chennai: The city cannot expect Krishna water supply from Andhra Pradesh at least for a while. It has to be content with the two tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) water jointly stored in its four reservoirs.
Storage in Kandaleru reservoir in Andhra Pradesh, whence water is supplied to the city, has too little water to share with Chennai. Senior TN WRO (water resource organization) officials in the know of things admitted to not even writing to their Andhra counterparts seeking water release, which was last stopped around September 15.
WRO officials decided against the writing to their Andhra counterparts based on the confidence given by Chennai Metro Water (CMWSSB) that it has enough water, 2tmcft, to last till December end.
The average month requirement of the city is around 1.2tmcft. CMWSSB official website put Kandaleru’s storage at little over 17tmc on Wednesday evening. The four reservoirs, Chembarambakkam, Poondi, Puzhal and Cholavaram, jointly store 2.009 tmcft as on date.
With the northeast monsoon expected to hit the city anytime before the month end, CMWSSB is confident that the monsoon season would replenish its reservoirs enough to meet the city’s requirements during the coming dog days.
The city has received little over 5tmcft since July. As per the inter-state water sharing agreement reached between the two states, Tamil Nadu is entitled to receive 12tmcft per year from Andhra. (8tmcft during July-December period and another 4tmcft for January-April period)