The city is facing its worst crisis in over a decade. With storage dwindling in the four principal water sources – Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam – Chennai Metrowater has now increased drawing water from farm wells.
This apart from pumping out ‘dead storage’ – where water level dips below the shutters – from the four reservoirs. The sprawling Red Hills and Chembarambakkam lakes have minimal resources now, sources told The Hindu.
The Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board is pumping out whatever is available in Poondi, Chembarambakkam and Red Hills reservoirs and distributing around 30 million litres a day (mld).
At present, about 540 mld is being distributed to the city, which is only half of the city’s demand. The water in the reservoirs will last less than a month.
To bridge the shortfall in supply from the main reservoirs, Metrowater is drawing 120 mld from from 273 agricultural wells in Ramarajan Kandigai, Velliyur, Moovur, Pullarambakkam and Karanai in Tiruvallur district, officials said.
With surface water drying up, it has turned to groundwater sources and started tapping additional water from well fields – clusters of water sources identified by Metrowater on the fringes of the city.
The well fields are at Poondi and Tamaraipakkam. Currently, 130 mld is being sourced from them, in addition to 30 mld from borewells in other areas.
Nearly 20 new borewells have been sunk on the fringes of Chennai to provide water to city residents.
The number of tanker trips has increased to 5,800 a day from 3,500. Officials added that there are well fields in Paravanaaru river belt in Cuddalore district with a potential to yield 55 mld.
