Nivar Effect: 4 City reservoirs at 75 per cent capacity

According to the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Metro Water), Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam lakes have a combined storage of 8,490 mcft, or 75.41 per cent of their cumulative capacity of 11,257 mcft.

It may be noted that the lakes had a storage of only 3,245 mcft on November 27, 2019. Among the four, Chembarambakkam lake received the heaviest inflow due to the cyclone and has the highest storage of 87 per cent. The lake has 3,176 mcft water against the full capacity of 3,645 mcft. Due to the excess inflow, the authorities had to release water from the lake into Adyar river. On Friday, the lake was receiving 1,730 cusecs.

Red Hills and Poondi lakes have 2,790 mcft and 2,214 mcft respectively on Friday. The level in Poondi continued to increase, as the lake received 2,527 cusecs. The lake also receives water from Krishna river. Also, Red Hills lake received 925 cusecs.

In contrast, however, Cholavaram lake had only 310 mcft against the full capacity of 1,081 mcft.

The recently dedicated fifth drinking water reservoir at Thervoy Kandigai has 170 mcft against the capacity of 500 mcft as on Friday morning. The Metro Water is yet to draw water from it, as the requirement is presently met by the existing lakes.

“With the present storage, there will be sufficient water for the city throughout the summer of 2021. As the meteorological department has issued a forecast of a new low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal, the storage level will further increase,” said an official.

The city water managers have already increased drinking water supply to 750 million litres per day (MLD) from 700 MLD a few days ago. Also, sources hinted that the government was considering the daily supply of water instead of the present arrangement of supply on alternate days.

The waterbodies restored by the Greater Chennai Corporation are also receiving water after the storm water drains were connected to them. Stating that the civic body was ready to restore more waterbodies, Corporation Commissioner G Prakash requested residents to share details of the encroached waterbodies with the civic body.