The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Veeranam storage not enough to supply Chennai

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 17, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Veeranam storage not enough to supply Chennai

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, SEPT. 16. The present storage at the Veeranam Lake is not enough to supply Chennai, according to Chennai Metrowater.

The lake in Cuddalore district has only 185 million cubic feet (mcft), against its total capacity of 1,485 mcft. The lake's catchment has received erratic rain in the past few days — 36 mm on Tuesday, but only 2mm on Wednesday.

Though it led to a rise in the water level, it is still not sufficient to meet the drinking needs of the city. Moreover, water from the lake is being distributed for irrigation in the district. Only surplus water would be diverted to Chennai, said a Metrowater official. In fact, the water is not enough even for irrigation. Conveying water to the city through pipelines laid under the New Veeranam Project can be done only when there is a good inflow into the lake.

The project envisages extraction and distribution of 180 million litres of water per day (MLD) from the lake. Today, the pipelines are being used to transport water from the Neyveli Aquifer. Chennai gets 85 MLD of water through the pipelines, which is distributed to residents through tankers.

Tanker trips

Metrowater has now increased the supply to 205 MLD, including industrial supply. Tanker trips for local distribution have also been increased to 13,000 to meet the drinking water demand.

Until August, 11,800 tanker trips a day were made. Tankers trips to bring in water from well fields in city fringes have also increased to 7,500 a day.

The increased use of tankers, another Metrowater official said, was because the available water was insufficient for supply through pipelines. "Only if there is a minimum of 250 MLD of water, can it be pumped into pipelines for domestic supply."

On the recent visit by a team comprising officials of Public Works Department and Metrowater to Kandaleru in Andhra Pradesh to hold talks for release of water to Chennai, a Metrowater official said water to the city would be released from Kandaleru only after Somasila reservoir, upstream of Kandaleru, was in surplus.

At present, the Somasila has storage of 5.27 thousand million cubic feet (TMC). Water would be released only when the storage rises to about 20 tmc. The storage position of Kandaleru reservoir is 1.4 tmc and the upstream Srisailam is 235 tmc.

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