4 city lakes run dry, reach dead storage

According to the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board data, Poondi lake which received an insubstantial amount of Krishna water has 362 mcft against its total storage capacity of 3231 mcft. In 2017, the lake had storage of 1774 mcft. Cholavaram lake has 46 mcft against the last year's storage of 160 mcft.

Redhills and Chembarambakkam lakes which have total capacity of 3300 mcft and 3645 mcft have present storage of 335 mcft and 11 mcft respectively. On March 27 of last year, the lakes had 1567 mcft and 1262 mcft. In total, the city sat comfortably last year with 4763 mcft.

The four lakes had already reached dead storage, which means the Metrowater has to install pumps to draw water from the lakes as the levels do not allow the natural flow of water. The difference and the current scarcity is attributed to the failed Northeast monsoon season in 2018. However, the state had witnessed a normal monsoon in 2017 as it received 86 per cent of rain.

Meanwhile, Metrowater had reportedly cut pipe water supply to many parts of the city forcing the residents to rely on the tanker lorry supply or buy water from private water suppliers.

"For the past one week, we are not getting pipe water. When contacted the officials, they claim that the problem is due to the decrease in pressure. Also, we do not know the exact time that the tanker lorry comes to our street. Metrowater should at least maintain a schedule so that we can arrange to fetch water from the lorries," M Vishnupriya, a resident of Choolaimedu said

It is also learnt that the city could not receive even 1 tmc of water from Krishna River as the neighbouring state ought to give 12 tmc per year as per the Telugu Ganga Agreement. The water manager had already cut the supply to 450 MLD (Million Litre per Day)from 680 MLD.