After several years of delay and struggles, the fifth reservoir at Thervoy Kandigai Kannankottai, which was created to meet the city’s growing drinking water needs, is likely to be inaugurated by December first week.
The Water Resources Department is carrying out final work on the reservoir, which is spread over nearly 1,485 acres, at Tiruvallur district and plans to complete it by the month-end. Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami will inaugurate the ₹380-crore project.
The reservoir has a storage of 100 million cubic feet (mcft) due to inflow from catchment areas during the recent rain. Two tanks were merged to form the reservoir with an annual storage capacity of 1,000 mcft when filled twice. Officials of the WRD said work was in progress to provide an inlet to allow surplus water from Karadiputhur tank to flow into the reservoir. Tenders were postponed thrice for the work because of pandemic as a result of which the project was delayed.
In the 7.1-km bund, the inlet with shutters was being built at the 5.6th km of the bund to allow an inflow of about 500 cusecs. “We need to raise the full tank level by 5 metres in this site. Nearly 75% of the work had been completed so far and the rest would be over in a fortnight,” said an official. The foundation stone for the project was laid in 2013. However, the project met several hurdles in acquiring lands and providing compensation to landowners.
The reservoir gets inflow from the tank at Karadiputhur and three water bodies at Balakrishnapuram in Andhra Pradesh. An 8.6-km-long channel has been laid to draw Krishna water from the Kandaleru Poondi (KP) canal. “We are prepared with infrastructure to store Krishna water in this reservoir if the other four waterbodies get filled up during northeast monsoon. The fifth reservoir will help irrigate the surrounding villages and has an ayacut area of 700 acres,” the official added. A new road has been formed for a distance of 3.5 km to link Karadiputhur and Kannankottai along with a bridge.
Meanwhile, Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board has laid a 16-km-long pipeline linking the reservoir with the KP canal.