Kandaleru reservoir level may last 4 days as Krishna flow dips

The Kandaleru reservoir from where the city has been getting water since the last week of December 2017 only has another 0.9 tmcft left before it reaches the dead storage level.

Senior WRD (water resource department) officials told DT Next that water available in Kandaleru facility would last only for another four days.

“If they release at 2,000- 2,500 cusecs, which they have been doing for nearly a month now, has been reduced now. If the supply is further reduced Kandaleru reservoir will reach dead storage in four days. Thereafter, it would only be the residual supply for a few days. Effectively, we will not be able to draw water from Kandaleru after a week,” said a senior WRD engineer requesting anonymity. “Beyond that, we can only pump water using motors, but Andhra PWD will not permit that,” the engineer added.

As of Thursday morning, the city was receiving around 550 cusecs, around 140 less than Wednesday night’s inflow. The fast-declining level in Andhra reservoirs apart, TN WRD engineers also attributed the sharp decline in inflow during the last few days to ‘illegal’ tapping by wayside farmers. 

WRD engineers from here have removed around 50 pumps put up by farmers within the 2.5 km (Tamil Nadu purview) from zero point alone during the last week. “If so many pumps were used in such a short distance under our (Tamil Nadu) control, little needs to be said about the volume of water drawn by farmers living along the 150km-long canal in Andhra? Illegal tapping has in fact increased as panicky farmers have been tapping more after realising the depletion in reservoir storage,” the officer remarked.

Srisailam and Somaseelam, which also contribute to Krishna water flow, had been exhausted even a couple of weeks ago. The city, which has released nearly 1.7 tmcft since December, would receive another 0.2 tmcft in a week. On Thursday, the joint storage of the four city reservoirs, Poondi, Puzhal, Cholavaram and Chembarambakkam stood at 5.045 tmcft, enough to meet the city’s water requirements easily for over four months. Coincidentally, supply from Veeranam lake has been halved to 72 cusecs since February 13.