Much to the relief of water managers here, the city would receive water from Krishna river by Thursday, which would help manage the drinking water requirement in the coming months.
Chennai:
According to officials from the Water Resources Department (WRD), Andhra Pradesh had suspended the discharge from Krishna river to Tamil Nadu a month ago. Sources added that the demand for drinking water could be managed for the next six months if they receive sufficient water.
“Andhra Pradesh has already started releasing 1,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) from the dam there. But we are yet to receive it; the water is expected to reach here by Thursday,” said a senior WRD official. The water release was suspended a month ago because the staff in charge of the release were not able to attend to work due to the lockdown.
“They had said that the water would be released on May 20, but it was delayed,” the official added.
Earlier, Tamil Nadu was receiving 450 cusecs to 500 cusecs. But from February, the discharge was reduced to 248 cusecs. The official said that the department has already written to the Andhra Pradesh officials to provide 3,000 million cubic feet (mcft) water. However, due to the COVID lockdown, the release was suspended before the scheduled period. The officials here are confident that the city would not face water crisis this year unlike last year.
According to them, the State did not receive enough water from Andhra Pradesh in 2018, which led to the severe water crisis that the capital city faced last summer.
“The four city reservoirs have a combined storage of more than 5 TMC. The water would be enough to meet the city’s drinking water requirement for another six months. So, we won’t experience water crisis like the one we faced last year,” added the official.