Low storage in Siruvani leads to erratic water supply in Kovai

Coimbatore

The long dry spell with poor intermittent showers has led to drastic fall in the dam’s storage to a meager 3.6 feet as against its full reservoir capacity of 50 feet as on Friday morning.

Currently, only 50 MLD of water has been drawn from the reservoir for drinking water requirements due to its poor storage. Normally, about 101.4 MLD of water, which is the fixed maximum quantum of water, is used to be withdrawn from the dam on a daily basis.

“Water drawn from the dam has been reduced drastically due to low storage position. Yet, moderate rains in the catchment areas of the reservoir led to a slight increase in water level by 20 cms over the last two days. If rains gain momentum to reach a comfortable water storage, then supply will also be increased,” said an official of TWAD.

Last year too, the water position in the dam was in single digits till the month of July before reaching its full capacity in August following torrential rains. With poor storage in the dam, water supply in many of the residential areas has now become poor and erratic.

Nevertheless, it is also likely to take a week more for the South West Monsoon to pick up pace. “The monsoon, which had set in Kerala on June 1 is yet to get vigorous and may take at least a week to pick up in this region,” said Dr SP Ramanathan, head of the Agro Climate Research Centre of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU).

Over the last 19 days since the monsoon kicked off, the Coimbatore district has received only a scant 8.5 mm of rains as against the 50 years average of 38 mm for the month of June. The monsoon brings an average rainfall of 189.6 mm from June to September in the district, while considering the rains received for about 50 years from 1970 to 2019.

Despite the disappointing start, the TNAU experts sound positive and have predicted 194 mm of rains, a little above the normal, during this monsoon and hope that rains may intensify from next month. Last year, the skies opened up heavily to record a total of about 308.1 mm of rains during the South West Monsoon.