Chennai city reservoirs receive steady inflow after massive rains, yet to touch even half the storage

Chennai's major reservoirs receive steady inflow after heavy rains, ensuring sufficient drinking water supply for a fortnight.

Chennai’s major reservoirs, particularly Red Hills and Cholavaram, received a steady inflow after massive rains in the catchment areas since Tuesday.

However, officials of the Water Resources Department noted that possibility of riverine flooding is less during this rain spell as the five reservoirs, which feed drinking water to the city, have only 39% of their combined storage capacity as on Wednesday evening.

The reservoirs have added storage of nearly 580 million cubic feet of water (mcft) since Tuesday on the first day of Northeast monsoon. The storage would be sufficient to provide drinking water supply to Chennai for a fortnight.

Among the reservoirs, Red Hills reservoir has filled up to nearly 71% of its storage capacity of 3,300 mcft due to extremely heavy rainfall. The waterbodies continued to receive reasonable inflow even after rainfall abated during the morning hours of Wednesday.

Krishna water supply from Andhra Pradesh also added to the storage in reservoirs. Officials noted that they expected more inflow from catchment areas and are monitoring the storage in reservoirs. “We still have sufficient storage space to conserve resources during monsoon. There is less chance for riverine flooding during this rainspell,” said a senior official.

Additional desilting works to tackle monsoon

The department has deployed additional machines to desilt 10 spots in Buckingham Canal, Cooum and Kosasthalaiyar rivers and Muttukadu estuary. The machines deployed, include 40 dredgers to desilt the stretches as part of the ₹2.3-crore work.