Krishna water from Andhra Pradesh will stop flowing into city reservoirs in a couple of days. The release of water from the Kandaleru reservoir in Andhra Pradesh has been reduced as waterbodies feeding the city are brimming with water.
On Friday, the State border of the Kandaleru-Poondi (K-P) canal at Uthukottai, Tiruvallur, received nearly 407 cubic feet per second (cusecs) of Krishna water. In a few days, this will be reduced gradually and inflow into Poondi Reservoir through the canal will cease.
Officials of the Water Resources Department said it was decided to reduce water discharge from Kandaleru reservoir to a minimal 400 cusecs as the needs were limited in localities en route.
“We have sufficient storage in all five reservoirs that feed drinking water to Chennai. We have almost filled the waterbodies with Krishna water and from catchment areas even though the northeast monsoon is more than a month away. We have to ask for water only next year depending on the monsoon rainfall,” an official said.
As on Friday, the five reservoirs together have a storage of 9,594 million cubic feet (mcft), which is 81.60% of their total capacity.
On the same day last year, the reservoirs only had a combined storage of 3,933 mcft.
Of this, storage at Poondi Reservoir has climbed up to 83.57% of its capacity. Besides Krishna water and catchment areas, the reservoir also received water from other sources in Andhra Pradesh, like Ammapalli Dam across Kosasthalaiyar river.
Chennai received 4,426 mcft of Krishna water for this spell since July 1. This aided in maintaining the water level in the reservoirs and also a steady rise in the city’s supply of water. Metrowater is now providing water supply of 974.17 million litres a day and looks to step it up to 1,000 mld in the coming days with ample resources, including in Veeranam tank which augments the city’s water needs.
The Water Resources Department is also slowly building up storage at Cholavaram reservoir through Baby canal as the waterbody will also get inflows from the Tamaraipakkam anicut during the monsoon.
With the K-P canal bed expected to dry up, maintenance work is set to resume soon as part of monsoon preparedness work, wherein eroded banks of the canal would be repaired.
“We also plan to resume the ₹24 crore project to construct canal lining. About 40% of the work was completed before the K-P canal started receiving water,” the official added.
