Western districts may escape drought this summer

Thanks to copious rains during the previous monsoon as most of the reservoirs in this part of the region continue to hold comfortable capacity of water. With water levels better than previous years, the water managers are hoping to sail through this summer without having to face any drinking water shortage.

This could be a sigh of relief for people in 16 districts, who are dependent on Mettur dam for their drinking water needs.

“The dam’s water level remains above 100 feet continuously for about 240 days. It was last in 2005 that the dam registered an unbeatable record of holding over 100 feet continuously for 427 days. With the soon-to-be expected summer rains and likely monsoon rains in April and May, the dam may continue to hold over 100 feet in the coming months too,” said a senior PWD official.

As the water position is good compared to previous years, the official said that it would sufficient to fulfil the drinking water requirements of people in the 16 districts for this summer. Currently, about 1,000 cusec of water is drawn for drinking water purposes, while the inflow has dropped abysmally low to 120 cusecs. The storage level in the dam stands at 104.130 feet.

Heavy inflow led Mettur dam to reach its FRL for four times on September 7, again on September 24 and for the third time on October 23 and for the fourth time on November 11 last year.

Similarly, the water level in Bhavani Sagar Dam also remains high compared to the same corresponding period last year. After about 40 years, the dam first reached its FRL of 105 feet on November 8 following heavy rains in its catchment areas in The Nilgiris. Thereafter, water level in the dam began to nosedive from 105 ft last on January 10 to 93.09 ft on Sunday. During the same corresponding time last year, the water level in the dam stood at 74 feet.

“There is enough storage in the dam to supply for both drinking and irrigation purposes even till December this year. Water has to be released from the dam annually on August 15 for irrigation. By the time of this release, inflow into the dam will also surge with monsoon rains setting in,” said an official.

The Siruvani Dam, which caters to the drinking water requirement of Coimbatore district, is also in a comfortable position. The dam now holds 29 feet of water against its full reservoir capacity of 50 feet. About 101.4 MLD of water, the fixed maximum quantum of water, has been drawn from the dam on a daily basis.

In contrast to these major reservoirs, the water level in dams under Parambikulam Aliyar Basin (PAB) has reduced to less than 50 per cent of their total capacity. Water storage level in Aliyar dam is pretty good at 61.20 ft as against 120 ft, whereas the Thirumurthy dam is 22.35 feet as against its full capacity of 60 feet and 29.76 feet as against 90 feet in Amaravathy dam.

It’s much lesser in the Sholayar dam, which is the second deepest dam in Asia, which has about 25.80 feet as against its full capacity of 120 feet.