The Hindu : Pumping of water will continue only for 15 days

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 31, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Pumping of water will continue only for 15 days

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, MARCH 30. With the declining level in the Kandaleru dam in Andhra Pradesh, the Irrigation authorities of that State have assessed that pumping of water for Chennai will at best continue for 15 days.

The storage at present is about 1.9 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft). "Now, we are letting 180 cusecs (cubic feet per second) into the Kandaleru-Poondi Canal," an Andhra Pradesh official says. Since the arrival of Kandaleru water on March 7, Tamil Nadu has realised 167 mcft. In the Red Hills tank, the net addition to its storage was about 60 mcft (million cubic feet), going by today's water level. Only a meagre amount of water (five cusecs) is being drawn. According to an official of the Tamil Nadu Public Works Department here, the original plan is to keep pumping of water till May 6. But, given the growing heat of summer, it may not be possible to have the pumping for one more month.

As for not emptying water fully from Red Hills, a senior officer of the Chennai Metrowater says the organisation's strategy is that it wants to leave behind some amount of water so that any rain can help to improve storage of the tank.

Meanwhile, Chennai Metrowater is finalising tenders for laying pipes to connect 120 private agricultural wells in Poondi with the main water transmission system. "We will award contracts shortly and the work will be completed in a month," says the official. For another 30 wells, bids are being floated.

All these wells are expected to yield 40 million litres a day (MLD). "Our plan is the Poondi wells will meet any shortfall in demand. Our strategy is to continue 175 MLD throughout summer," the official says.

This morning, the combined storage of Red Hills and Satyamurthi Sagar in Poondi stood at 196 mcft, of which Red Hills accounted for 188 mcft.

On Saturday and Sunday, the Poondi reservoir recorded three cm rainfall each day. Red Hills and Chembarampakkam, also used for supplementing the city supply, received 2 cm rainfall on Sunday.

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