Friday night’s rain adds 30 mcft water to 3 city reservoirs

CHENNAI: The heavy showers that the city received on Friday night have added around 30 million cubic feet (mcft) of water to three of the four reservoirs that supply drinking water to the city. To put this in perspective, this bounty is double of what the four lakes had on the same day last year (15 mcft).

According to Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Metro Water) data, the four lakes had a combined storage of 3,957 mcft on Saturday. On Friday morning, before the rain battered the city, the combined storage was 3,918 mcft.

This stands in stark contrast with the situation last year, when the four lakes had a combined storage of only 15 mcft on the same day. “On Friday night, the catchment areas of the city lakes received good rains. Puzhal, Poondi, Chembarambakkam, Cholavaram and the areas surrounding the lakes received more than 7 cm rain. This has increased the storage levels of the lakes,” an official said.

Among the four lakes, Chembarambakkam has received more water than the rest, adding 20 mcft overnight. On Friday, Chembarambakkam had 1,602 mcft, which went up to 1,622 mcft on Saturday.

The storage in Poondi lake increased to 69 mcft from 59 mcft, while it went up to 2,174 mcft from 2,165 mcft in the case of Red Hills. However, the storage in Cholavaram lake remained unchanged at 92 mcft.

In another good news to the city, the Andhra Pradesh government has released 1,500 cusecs of Krishna water from Kandaleru reservoir, which is expected to reach zero point in Tiruvallur on Monday. The city has received around 8 thousand million cubic (TMC) of water from Krishna river this year. As per the Telugu Ganga agreement, the neighbouring State should release 12 TMC water to Chennai every year.

Chembarambakkam has received more water than the rest, adding 20 mcft overnight