At a time when reservoirs supplying drinking water to the city are running dry, water from the Krishna, considered a lifeline, is on its way.
According to the Water Resources Department (WRD) officials here, about 300 cubic feet per second (cusecs) of water was released into the 152-km long Kandaleru-Poondi canal at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
The outflow will be stepped up to 1,000 cusecs by Sunday and further increased next week, the officials said.
The Kandaleru reservoir now has 9.16 thousand million cubic feet of water (tmc). The water could not be released till now as the storage had to reach a minimum of 8.4 tmc for discharge.
The water released into the K-P canal would also cater to Kalahasti and Tirupati en route, before reaching the State’s border at Uthukottai, Tiruvallur district. As the canal bed is dry, it would take six to seven days for the water to reach the inter-State border, officials said.
A team of Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) officials are on a visit to the Kandaleru reservoir.
The Andhra Pradesh government has promised to provide 2 tmc of water during October.
This would be sufficient to manage the city’s water requirement till the onset of the northeast monsoon, sources said.
It may be recalled that Chennai received 2 tmc between January and March this year, that helped the city tide over the crisis during summer.
The regulator gates in the K-P Canal at Kandaleru dam were opened on Saturday in the presence of Kurugondla Ramakrishna, Telugu Desam MLA of Venkatagiri Constituency and Prabhu Shankar, executive director, CMWSSB.
