The rainfall over the past few days brought considerable inflow, equal to 10 days' supply to the city, to the four reservoirs.
Officials of the Chennai Metrowater said the reservoirs in Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam received an inflow of 200 million cubic feet of water (mcft) in the past one week.
Cloudy skies and showers have also reduced the evaporation loss, which otherwise remains a major concern for the city's water managers. “We were losing 10 mcft of water daily in the reservoirs due to evaporation. The depletion of resources has decreased a great deal after rain,” said an official.
The combined storage of the four reservoirs is now 4,420 mcft, which is nearly 400 mcft more than the storage during the corresponding period last year. They added the storage prior to the rainfall was on the decline.
With the present storage, the Metrowater would be able to sustain the supply of 660 million litres a day (mld) of which 560 mld is through pipeline. The supply is also augmented with water from the Veeranam tank and well fields.
Meanwhile, officials of the Water Resources Department are taking measures for the speedy release of Krishna water from Andhra Pradesh, which is due this month. Sources from the department said there was a delay in the release as repair works taken up at the Kandaleru Poondi canal were yet to be completed. The Kandaleru reservoir has storage of about 18,000 mcft against its capacity of 68,000 mcft as on Wednesday.
For several years the city started receiving the second instalment of Krishna water only in August. As per the agreement between the two States, the water is to be released twice a year. Last year, the Krishna water reached the inter-State border of the canal during mid-September, sources said, adding that Andhra Pradesh had released the water earlier this year in February.
The department also plans to take up repair works of the Kandaleru Poondi canal in Tamil Nadu limit and the feeder canal and link canal carrying water from the Poondi reservoir to those at Red Hills and Chembarambakkam respectively.
The works, including strengthening of bund and canal bed, would be carried out with the State government funding of Rs.14 crore. This would be started in January next year after the storage is built up in the reservoirs with Krishna water, an official said.
