CHENNAI: With the city receiving Krishna water from Saturday, it is expected wagons ferrying water from Jollarpettai for the past two months will soon stop. Metro Water officials said that it would happen, once the level in Poondi and Red Hills reservoirs crosses 1,000-mcft mark, in about 10 days.
Currently, the city is receiving 5.5 MLD of groundwater from Jolarpettai. The state took this initiative at a cost of `65 crore when the city was reeling under acute water shortage.
Last week, Andhra finally opened sluice gates of Kandaleru reservoir after a gap of seven months. After four days, water reached the Poondi reservoir through the zero point at Uthukottai. Presently, the reservoir has about 500 mcft of water, thanks to the recent rains in Tiruvallur district. Water Resource department officials said that around 650 cusecs was reaching the reservoir, which would attain full capacity of 3.23 mcft if water was released at the same rate for a month.
“By October-end we will have 1.5 to 2 tmcft of water. Combined with the present storage, we will have 2.5 tmcft. Once it is diverted to Red Hills, areas such as Vyasarpadi, Anna Nagar and parts of Ambattur will get more water,” said a senior WRD official.
“Once water levels reach 1,000 mcft in Poondi, water will be diverted to the Red Hills reservoir. But only after there is more than 800 mcft in Red Hills, we will send it for treatment and distribution,” said a Metro Water official.
As of Monday, all four reservoirs had around 650 mcft of water.