City loses water as fund crunch hits check dam work
This monsoon, during which the rains were heavy though sporadic, the city lost as much as 15,000 cubic foot of water per second from the Cooum river alone because of the delay in repairing the check dam at Korattur. Senior officials say it was the failure in getting funds from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) that caused the delay.
By : migrator
Update: 2019-12-18 06:32 GMT
Chennai
The actual quantum of water that flowed into the sea – instead of being diverted to the reservoirs to meet the requirement in the coming summer – will be much more when the other rivers like Adyar and Kosasthalaiyar are factored in.
According to senior PWD officials, the proposal to renovate the check dams on Cooum and Kosasthalaiyar rivers was submitted in 2018. The plan was to complete the work before the monsoon set in this year. However, the State government did not issue the order to start work, as it did not get funds from NABARD.
“The work on check dams was supposed to start before the northeast monsoon. But it was postponed due to lack of funds. Had they been repaired before the monsoon, nearly 15,000 cusecs of water from Cooum river could have been diverted to the Chembarambakkam reservoir from the check dam near Puduchatram village in Korattur,” said A Palanisamy, Executive Engineer, Water Resources Department (WRD).
While Cooum and Kosasthalaiyar rivers have check dams, the authorities are yet to construct one across Adyar river.
The structures across Kosasthalaiyar were damaged in 2015 when unprecedented downpour led to massive flooding in the city and its surroundings. The renovation of two check dams there started in June, but had to be stopped when the monsoon set in, said the official.
The WRD is proposing a new design for the check dams that can help redirect about 50,000 cusecs – more than thrice as that of the existing structures. This will help improve the storage at the reservoirs that supply drinking water to the city, besides preventing damage to the check dams during heavy downpours.
“At present, the length of the structure is 114 metres. Now, it is being extended to 175 metres which will enable it to hold more water,” said Palanisamy. The official said the work on restoring the damaged structures would be completed by next year.
There are proposals to build new check dams across Cooum and Kosasthalaiyar, and also Adyar that at present does not have any such structure. “The dams would be constructed across the Adyar river, too. They might come under the Adyar river project, under which the river restoration work has been taken up,” said the official. But the government is yet to allot funds for this, he added.
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