[Savviioor]

Chennaites can breathe easy about availability of drinking water this summer. State public works department officials on Wednesday said they are confident that Andhra Pradesh will soon release Krishna water for Chennai. A little over a week after the state PWD made a request to AP to release water from the Kandaleru reservoir, the chief engineer of Andhra Pradesh’s PWD has written to his government saying that the storage in Kandaleru is good enough to release Krishna water to Tamil Nadu this summer.
Senior state PWD sources told Deccan Chronicle that an affirmative reply is expected in the next 10 days and Andhra Pradesh will release water from Kandaleru shortly after that.

Kandaleru currently has 46 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water, against its full capacity of 58 tmcft.
Tamil Nadu is entitled to 12tmcft per annum under the inter-state water sharing agreement reached with Andhra.
The state receives the stipulated quantum in two parts, 4 tmcft between January and April and the remaining 8 tmcft between July and October.
Given the likelihood of early release of Krishna water, water managers say the state capital will be spared from a major crisis since the four perennial reservoirs that supply water to the city have a joint storage of 6.9 tmcft, against the total full storage capacity of 11.057 tmcft.
The water level was at 2.373 tmcft, 2.248 tmcft, 0.622 tmcft and 1.704 tmcft in Poondi, Puzhal, Cholavaram and Chembarambakkam on Tuesday.
Veeranam Lake that supplies 180 mld (million litres per day) to Chennai and which was brimming over at the same time last year, is parched owing to maintenance work along the Coleroon river. But existing surface storage plus Krishna water and water pumped from the deep borewells on the Cuddalore-Panruti stretch kept water managers confident.


Credits - DC