The Hindu : No Krishna water until next monsoon, says Jayalalithaa

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 30, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

No Krishna water until next monsoon, says Jayalalithaa

By Our Special Correspondent

Chennai April 29. Chennai will not get Krishna water until the next monsoon as there is no water in Andhra Pradesh reservoirs, the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, said today.

The Andhra Pradesh Government had also turned down Tamil Nadu plea for pumping out the dead storage from the Kandaleru reservoir as the canal lining work was on in full swing and it would get completed only by June, Ms. Jayalalithaa told the Assembly.

The Chief Minister statement was in response to the Congress MLA plea, during a debate on demands for the Municipal Administration department, for taking steps to pump out the 5 tmcft of water available in the Kandaleru reservoir to tide over the acute water scarcity in Chennai.

Intervening, the Chief Minister said the MLA had given wrong information to the House, and Kandaleru had only 3 tmcft, which was dead storage. However, Ms. Jayalalithaa said when she met the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and also when the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary approached her counterpart, Andhra Pradesh had agreed to pumping out water from Kandaleru. But, it was felt that pumping out such a small quantity of water would not help and it may not reach the Poondi reservoir at all.

In spite of it, the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary recently approached her Andhra Pradesh counterpart for pumping out the dead storage from Kandaleru. But, the Andhra Pradesh Government had expressed inability as thousands of men and machinery were engaged in lining the Telugu-Ganga canal. If the project was put off, the expenditure would double and reassembling the labourers would also be difficult.

"The real situation is, there is no water in Srisailam. And, only if there is water in Srisailam will it flow into Somasila and from there to Kandaleru and down to Poondi in Tamil Nadu", Ms. Jayalalithaa said.

But, the Congress MLA pointed out that water from Kandaleru reservoir was being pumped out to Tirupathi. At this, the Chief Minister said her Government was aware of it, but, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary had informed Tamil Nadu that it would be stopped in April.

Later, the Chief Minister also announced that pipelines being laid for the Veeranam water scheme would be linked to the Kolavai lake in Chengalpattu to enable the city to get both the Veeranam and Kolavai water.

Ms. Jayalalithaa said the Kolavai lake was being used as a sewage dumping point and that she had ordered the clean up of the "beautiful lake".

Giving the background to her clean-up directive, Ms. Jayalalithaa said, as she had passed by the lake quite often, she asked the officials if the Kolavai water was being supplied to Chengalpattu residents. But, the officials' reply was: "only sewage from Chengalpattu is being let into the lake". "I felt it was atrocious and asked the officials to clean up the lake", she said.

When the Veeranam water project was completed, the pipeline would be linked to Kolavai and the water from the lake would also reach Chennai, she said.

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