The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Krishna water to be released next week

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Wednesday, Sep 09, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Krishna water to be released next week

M. Malleswara Rao and T. Ramakrishnan

Decision taken at a meet chaired by Andhra Chief Minister

Storage in Chennai reservoirs declining
Not much water in Veeranam tank

HYDERABAD/CHENNAI: The Andhra Pradesh government on Tuesday announced that it would release Krishna water for Chennai from September 15. Water from the Kandaleru reservoir in Nellore district, about 200 km north of Chennai, would be released to the Satyamurti Sagar in Poondi through the Kandaleru-Poondi Canal.

This decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K. Rosaiah in Hyderabad. Major Irrigation Minister P. Lakshmaiah said it was taken on the basis of a request from the Tamil Nadu government. His government would meet its commitment in full, but over two or three spells as was done in the previous years.

The Telugu Ganga canal originates from the Srisailam dam and reaches Poondi after covering a distance of 408 km and crossing three major reservoirs, including Kandaleru. The Srisailam reservoir is now nearly full while Kandaleru has a storage of 22 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft).

The announcement has enthused officials of the Tamil Nadu Water Resource Department (WRD) and Chennai Metrowater in view of the declining storage in the reservoirs catering to the city’s needs. On Tuesday, the combined storage was about 2.7 tmcft against the capacity of 11.057 tmcft. On the corresponding day last year, the storage was about 3.9 tmcft. Given the present level of drawal, the storage can last a couple of months. On an average, Metrowater supplies 630 million litres a day (MLD) to the city. The share of groundwater in this quantum is 35 to 40 MLD.

The officials point out that the Veeranam tank in Cuddalore district does not have much water, though it now contributes 180 MLD to the city.

On Monday, the WRD decided to increase Veeranam storage.

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