The city will get another source of water supply within a year to address the growing needs of tresidents and bridge the gap during years of scanty rainfall.
Chennai Metrowater is all set to start work to use tertiary treated waste water for city supply by this month-end or early May, said officials.
Considered to be a major leap forward in terms of use of reclaimed water, the water agency has sought the support of IIT-Madras for the approval of the design of the tertiary treatment plants to be installed in Nesapakkam and Perungudi. The institution will also be roped in to check the quality of the treated water.
Metrowater officials said initially treatment plants with a capacity to treat 10 million litres a day (mld) of waste water would be added in these sites and treated water would be released into Porur and Perungudi lakes. Water drawn from these lakes would again be treated and distributed to the city.
Once the facility gets ready, it will initially supply 18 mld of water to the city. The capacity of the plants would be scaled up to 260 mld depending on future needs and availability of water resources.
Simultaneously, work to build water treatment plants in Retteri, Ayanambakkam and Perumbakkam to draw a total of 30 mld would be started by this month-end. The design of these plants was approved by IIT-Madras and the quality will be monitored.
“We want to complete the works in 10 months to reduce the water crisis in the city,” an official said.
Storage in reservoirs
Meanwhile, storage in the Veeranam tank in Cuddalore district is also being stepped up to augment water supply in Chennai. Water from the Mettur dam is being released to increase storage in the Veeranam tank. It has a storage of nearly 1,370 mcft against the capacity of 1,485 mcft as on Friday.
The city is fast losing out storage in its reservoirs and water from the Veeranam tank will help offset the depleting supply from the four reservoirs in the fringes.
About 180 mld is usually supplied from the Veeranam tank to the city through a 230-km pipeline.
