The hassles in receiving Krishna water from Andhra Pradesh may soon be reduced as work to reconstruct the damaged portion of the Kandaleru Poondi canal has started.
The Water Resources Department and Chennai Metrowater authorities requested the Andhra Pradesh officials to sustain the same amount of water release from the Kandaleru reservoir to tackle water shortage this summer. Despite the repair work, it has been requested that Krishna water be provided to the city.
At present, the entry point of Kandaleru Poondi canal at Uthukottai, Tiruvallur district, receives about 80 cubic feet of water (cusecs). Officials of the WRD said that water to the city is diverted through a set of pipelines due to damage in the canal at Ubbalamadugu near Varadapalayam in Andhra Pradesh.
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Preliminary work is underway to demolish the old structure and work on reconstructing the canal is set to begin in a few days. The project has been taken up at a cost of Rs.6.9 crore. “As the water is already being diverted, there is no need to stop the water supply to the city. Once the work is completed in August, the canal will be ready to carry water to its full capacity of 1,000 cusecs,” said an official.
Since the beginning of the Krishna water supply project in 1996, Chennai has so far realised 63.31 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft). On an average, about one tmcft is being drawn from the city reservoirs every month for water supply.
“We have received 4.5 tmcft of water from June last year. This has helped to sustain the storage at the reservoirs for several months,” said an official. The resources in Veeranam tank, Cuddalore district, will also augment Chennai’s water supply for a month. It provides 37 cusecs, which translates to 80 million litres of water a day.
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Currently, the four reservoirs have storage of only 36 per cent of its total capacity. With the available resources, including from Veeranam tank and Krishna water, drinking water supply could be maintained daily for three more months.