Date:22/09/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/09/22/stories/2005092217090400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

City water supply is set to improve

K Lakshmi

Inflow into Kandaleru expected soon

CHENNAI: Good news for the city's residents. The water storage at Somasila reservoir in Andhra Pradesh has reached 25 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) on Wednesday. A portion of the water will be transferred to Kandaleru reservoir from where water is released to Chennai. The transfer from Somasila to Kandaleru is expected to begin in the next four or five days.

Public Works Department officials here told The Hindu that the Somasila reservoir received an inflow of about 5,100 cubic feet per second (cusecs) on Wednesday from Srisailam reservoir, which has almost full storage of 263 tmc ft.

Water from Somasila would be transferred to Kandaleru reservoir after the storage builds up to 30 tmc ft. Water under the Telugu Ganga project has to travel along the 50 km canal from Somasila reservoir to reach Kandaleru, which now has a storage of 5.5 tmc ft. Once the storage reaches nine tmc ft, water was expected to be released to Chennai, a PWD official said.

It would take 20 days for the transfer of water to Kandaleru reservoir and then the release to zero point on the Tamil Nadu border at Uthukottai, he said. Water is expected to reach the zero by October 10. The State border at Uthukottai realised 2.7 tmc ft of Kandaleru water in about three months since its initial inflow on November 27 last year.

PWD and Metrowater officials representing both Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh discussed framing of operational rules for the Telugu Ganga project at a joint technical committee meeting held on Tuesday. The officials here suggested that carryover storage be maintained in Somasila and Kandaleru reservoirs after water was released for irrigation. This would facilitate storage to increase in the reservoirs and quick release of water to Chennai. The committee would meet again in December.

The officials here said that the city water supply situation would be comfortable with the release of water from the neighbouring State. At present, Chennai Metrowater supplies about 680 million litres of water through pipeline and tankers on alternate days.

Officials expect to realise at least 4000 million cubic feet of water this year under the Telugu Ganga Project.