The city will soon get another reservoir to store rainwater that otherwise gets drained into the sea.
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for the construction of a reservoir linking two water bodies in Kannankottai and Thervoy Kandigai in Gummidipoondi taluk.
The CM inaugurated the Rs. 330-crore project through video-conferencing.
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The new reservoir will be the fifth to cater to the growing drinking water needs of the city and will be able to store additional water received from the Kandaleru reservoir, Andhra Pradesh apart from rainwater in its catchment areas. It will come up 14 km away from Uthukottai, the inter-state limit of Kandaleru Poondi (KP) canal and is expected to be completed in two years.
The reservoir will have the capacity to hold 1,000 mcft, when filled twice. This is equal to the amount of water drawn from the existing reservoirs to meet the city’s monthly water requirements. At present, the combined storage capacity of the four reservoirs in Red Hills, Cholavaram, Poondi and Chembarambakkam is 11,057 million cubic feet (mcft).
Officials of the Water Resources Department said that in a couple of days, work would be started on the 509 acres of government poromboke land available. The total land requirement for the project is 1,495 acres. An additional 600 acres will be made available in a fortnight as a team comprising a special district revenue officer and tahsildars are in the process of acquiring it, officials said.
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Initially, the chosen Erode-based contractor, Ramalingam Construction Company Limited will be involved in creating the earthen bund spanning a distance of 7.1 km and also form the 8.3 km-long canal to bring Krishna water from the KP canal to the new reservoir.
Once it is completed, Chennai Metrowater will have to create infrastructure to transport nearly 66 million litres of water a day from the reservoir for city supply.