CHENNAI: Veeranam lake, which is Chennai city’s crucial drinking water source, started receiving water released from Mayar and Kallanai dams a week ago.Water resources department (WRD) officials said 400 cusecs of water is currently flowing into the Veeranam tank, translating to roughly 35 million cubic feet (Mcft) a day. If the inflow continues uninterrupted for the next 45 days, the tank will reach its full storage capacity of 1,465 mcft.At present, however, the tank holds just 285 mcft, enough to meet supply needs for only the next 15 days, officials said. Metrowater continues to draw 180 million litres a day from the tank for the city’s drinking water requirements, making the fresh inflow critical to sustaining supply until storage levels rise further.The situation in the city’s other major sources is equally tight. The combined storage in the five reservoirs across Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts stood at 5,930 mcft.A senior WRD engineer said the entire quantity cannot be drawn for public distribution, since evaporation loss, percolation loss and dead storage levels together account for a 10% reduction. Factoring this in, only about 5,400 mcft is effectively usable before the reservoirs hit dead storage, which is enough to sustain the city for roughly three months, the engineer said.One factor that could ease the pressure is the release of water from Andhra Pradesh’s Kandaleru reservoir through the Krishna canal. Under an inter-state agreement, 12tmcft of water is to be released annually during the water year running from June to July. However, officials said that Andhra Pradesh has never released more than 8 tmc ft in any year so far.With existing storage under strain across all major sources, the WRD engineer said a meaningful improvement in water levels now hinges on the timely onset of the northeast monsoon later this year.
