Water from the Veeranam tank reached the Porur distribution station on Saturday evening. After a gap of about four months, water from the tank started flowing to Chennai. The tank that remained bone dry for the past few months is now brimming with water.
Officials of the Chennai Metrowater said the water was pumped to various distributions stations in K.K.Nagar, Alandur, Mylapore, Pallipattu, Velachery and Nandanam.
The water will be blended with other sources drawn from Chembarambakkam lake and Nemmeli desalination plant and then supplied to city residents.
The water agency would stop drawing about 70 million litres a day of water being drawn from borewells in Neyveli belt to conserve resources, an official said.
At a brief function, Municipal Administration and Law Minister K.P.Munusamy, accompanied by Rural Industries Minister M.C. Sampath and District Collector R. Kirlosh Kumar, switched on the pumping station located on the premises of Vadakuthu water treatment plant to symbolise the water release.
Mr. Munusamy told presspersons here later that Chennai would be getting 180 million litres of water per day from the tank. Due to failure of monsoons in the previous year, the tank went dry and water supply to Chennai was stopped on April 26. The copious rainfall during the south-west monsoon and the resultant heavy flow in the Cauvery has substantially raised the level in the tank.
As the water level reached 46.10 feet against the full level of 47.5 feet, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa ordered release of water from the tank to Chennai.
Two new sources have been added to the New Veeranam Project to ensure water supply to Chennai round the year. Already, the project is being supported by 46 deep borewells sunk on the Neyveli–Panruti road stretch.
Now, officials have put in place a mechanism for tapping water from the Paravanar and water pumped out of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation mines for the Veeranam supply system.
Two pipelines – one linking to the Paravanar and the other to the NLC mines – to constantly pump water into the new Veeranam supply channel have been laid.
The officials said it was designed such a fashion that at a time only one source, either the Paravanar or the NLC mines, could be attached to the system.
In the past two months, the officials drew 30 million litres of water per day from the Paravanar and 25 million litres from the borewells for feeding the Veeranam pipeline.
“As the stand-by sources have been identified and readied, Chennai residents can now be rest assured that the supply line from Cuddalore will never go dry, the officials said.
