SP Velumani allays fears of summer water crisis

Chennai: Chennai and other parts of the state will not face drinking water crisis this summer owing to the all-inclusive measures initiated by the state government anticipating a shortfall and also of the imminent replenishment of 4 TMC water from the Krishna River, municipal administration minister S. P. Velumani said.

Ruling out drinking water scarcity in the metro or in other parts of the state till December-end, Mr Velumani said the government has taken pre-emptive steps on a war-footing as was done during 2017 under the leadership of late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa when there was the worst crisis in 142 years in the city. The Minister refuted the opposition charge in the Assembly on Wednesday that Chennai or rest of Tamil Nadu is heading towards a drinking water crisis.

“Then Amma (Jayalalithaa) tackled the drought be ensuring a supply of 550 million litres to the residents in Chennai. The drinking water was harnessed from borewells, 22 quarries, Veeranam and Poondi lakes besides water from desalination plants. This time we have elaborately planned to cope with the situation by taking up appropriate works” Mr Velumani said.

He added that that though the State had received 54% less rainfall during 2018, the government would follow the 2017 model in tackling the drought-like situation.

During the last two fi-nancial years, the government under Mr Palaniswami had allotted '2,464.80 crore to take up 4,092 different works to augment Chennai drinking water supply. For the year 2019, the government has allotted a total of '158 crore for drought relief works including '122 crore for Chennai Metro Water and '36 crore for TWAD Board to meet the situation in the State.

Listing out the measures undertaken this year, Mr. Velumani said about 30 million cusecs water would be provided by purifying the Singarayapuram quarries at a cost of Rs 11 crore, 10 million cusecs water would be provided at Rs 19.17 crore from Erumaiyur quarries for which tenders have been invited and a second replenishment of water to Veeranam from Mettur is being arranged.

Tenders for sinking nine new borewells for extracting 25 million cusecs water at Rs 6.67 crore have been invited to source water from Neyveli's Gadilam River bed. About 25 million cusecs water would be obtained from Neyveli mine, 40 million cusecs from Paravanaru and 25 million cusecs from Gadilam River. Also water from Poondi, Thamaraipakkam, Rettai Eri, Perumbakkam, Ayanampakkam tanks would be harnessed and a purification plant would be established at Perungudi, he said.

Apart from two million cusecs water from Krishna River which has been obtained, Chennai would get additional two million cusecs water soon. Similarly, works have been initiated in all the urban and rural areas of TN. About 238 works have been taken up in 86 panchayats at Rs 24.85 crore.