Reservoirs in Chennai may go bone dry

Chennai: From next week Chennai will completely rely on groundwater and harvest on the water desalinated from Minjur and Nemmili plants thanks to depleting lake levels that plummeted to an alarming an all-time low of 4 per cent.

“There is every possibility of all four reservoirs going completely dry with no trace of water and we do not know when such a thing had happened in the past. According to the recent data available with the Chennai Metro Water, this is the worst ever recordings for water starved Chennai,” a senior Metro Water official said.

Further the water level in Kandeluru is also below their discharge level and there are no practical chances for neighboring Andhra to release water until there is a heavy down pour in Krishna catchment area, the official added.

According to Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board sources, fresh water resource tapped from all four reservoirs catering to Chennai stood at 521 mcft against its total capacity of 11,057 mcft and this is 4.7 per cent. Now with the drought situation continuing the vapourisation of all four dams is an issue. Even local fishermen are now avoiding the dams as there is dearth of aquatic life, said a government official in Tiruvallur district.

Meanwhile, Chennai metro water, which has suspended water supply in tail end areas, has now commenced repair work on these stretches to attend the worn out lines, so that water pilferage and sewerage entering water pipelines are arrested.

At present, repair works have been started in parts of Central and north Chennai covering the assembly constituencies of R K Nagar, Harbour and Perambur, sources added.