The Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) government has assured Tamil Nadu (T.N.) of release of three thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of Krishna water to Chennai, by March end.
The assurance was given at a meeting of the inter-State liaison committee in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
The chief secretaries of the two States, I.Y.R. Krishna Rao and K. Gnanadesikan, took part in the meeting, according to some participants.
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The development comes at a time when the possibility of water shortage in Chennai looms large. The current storage of 2.8 tmcft in the city’s reservoirs is the lowest (on the corresponding day) in the past three years, even though water supply is supplemented by other sources — Veeranam tank, two desalination plants and groundwater.
For the next five months, Chennai is not likely to receive much rainfall.
Talk of the city undergoing a spell of shortage this summer has already started doing the rounds. The current level of water supply is about 600 million litres a day (MLD).
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At the meeting, Mr. Rao told his T.N. counterpart and his team of officers that at least three tmcft would be delivered at the entry point of the Kandaleru-Poondi Canal in T.N. to tide over the water crisis in Chennai, according to participants at the meeting.
The development comes as a relief to Metrowater which can now hope to manage the supply situation comfortably, said one of the participants.
When the T.N. team said the realisation of Krishna water at the entry point of the canal had been poor over the past three years, and that it should be maintained at 1,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs), representatives of A.P. said steps would be taken to ensure a minimum of 500 cusecs over the next two months.
The current storage of 2.8 tmcft in the city’s reservoirs is the lowest for the period in the past three years