Heavy rains offer new lease of life to Chennai lakes after bone-dry summer

Chennai was one of the worst affected cities in Tamil Nadu last summer due to the severe water crisis.

news Water Resources

Incessant rains in Chennai and surrounding areas over the last two days have helped boost the reservoir water levels, bringing much needed respite to the residents of Chennai city. The water levels at all four reservoirs that supply water to the city have jumped up in the last few days.

According to the data available at the Chennai Metrowater website, the combined water level in the four lakes at the city’s periphery stood at 273 mcft as of Friday. This is in sharp contrast to the situation from a few weeks ago, when the lakes had been considered close to dry. Poondi reservoir holds 208 mcft of water as of Friday, the highest among the four lakes. Water levels at Cholavaram lake (30 mcft), Redhills (27 mcft) and Chembarambakkam (8 mcft) have also brought relief to the citizens.The amount of water will be enough to tackle the supply needs of the city for over 10 days.

The combined lake levels on Wednesday stood at 15 mcft, which was just 0.13% of the total water storage capacity of the four lakes.

While Redhills and Cholavaram lakes received upto 600 cusecs of water on Thursday, Poondi received upto 3000 cusecs of water through the Kosasthalaiyar river. The inflows to the lakes had reduced drastically by Friday afternoon, and more rains would be required to keep the inflow steady to refill the lakes.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has, meanwhile, forecast heavy rainfall over isolated places in Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur, Tiruvannamalai, Villupuram, Cuddalore, Perambalur, Ariyalur, Vellore, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga and parts of the Cauvery Delta till Sunday. The meteorological centre has also forecast heavy to very heavy rains over isolated places in Tamil Nadu’s coastal districts on Monday and Tuesday. As on Friday, Udayalipatti in Pudukottai district received the highest amount of rainfall at 7 cms while Thanjavur received 6 cms of rainfall over a day as on Friday.