CHENNAI: Reservoirs in Chennai are almost full due to heavy rains across the state. Sources in the Public Works Department (PWD) said that the water would be sufficient to meet Chennai’s drinking water requirements for the next nine months. Highly-placed sources in the department told City Express that the Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills, Chembarambakkam and Veeranam reservoirs are 90 percent full.
Authorities are maintaining a buffer of 90 per cent, anticipating another rainfall within 10 days. The sources said, “With the next rainfall, we will be maintaining the dam levels at 98 per cent.” Currently, water is being discharged from all the dams as a precautionary measure, a source added.
“If we maintain the levels full, it will be dangerous to the strength of the dams,” the source said. Meanwhile, the inflow of Krishna water into Poondi has been stopped from November 14. “Till now, we have received 8.05 tmc feet water from June 24 to November 14 from Krishna River,” the source said. It is believed that the State is expected to receive the next due of Krishna river water in the month of January.
Meanwhile, Poondi is expected to get 4,000 cusecs of water from Krishnapuram dam in Ammanapalli. “The dam authorities in Andhra Pradesh have released surplus water to Poondi on a trial basis. It is expected that about 4,000 cusecs of water will be released into Poondi,” the source said.
“Currently, we are discharging 4,528 cusecs of water from Poondi. If we get water from Krishnapuram, we will be discharging about 6,000 cusesc of water. The reservoir is nearly full and we are maintaining level below one feet. The water is being discharged into regulator, baby canal and link canal before being discharged into the Kosasthalayar river and the sea,” sources said.
Interestingly, this is the highest level of discharge of water from Poondi. Although officials maintain it is too early to give the figures, they agree that this was the highest discharge by the Poondi reservoir. The discharge of water into Cooum and Adyar has cleaned up the river. Besides, the rain has improved the groundwater situation, source said.
Meanwhile, of the 89 dams across the State, a dam in Erode has reached full capacity while 13 dams are 90 to below 100 per cent full. Similarly, eight dams have 75 per cent to less than 90 per cent water, while 24 other dams have water levels above 50 to 75 per cent. There are 43 dams whose water levels are still less than 50 per cent, said another PWD source.
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