Chennai’s fifth reservoir will be ready before monsoon: EPS

The project, aimed at linking waterbodies in Thervoy Kandigai and Kannankottai to form a reservoir, can store 1,000 million cubic feet of water when filled twice.

“The construction work on the Thervoy Kandigai-Kannankottai reservoir would be completed very soon. We are taking steps to store water during this year monsoon itself,” Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said replying to the debate on the demand for grants for the PWD department on Monday.

The ambitious project was launched by the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in September 2013 but it missed several deadlines due to the court case in land acquisition. Of the revised project cost of Rs 380 crore, nearly Rs 160 crore was spent towards compensation provided to landowners.

A Water Resources Department official said that 95 per cent of the works on setting up of a new reservoir at Thervoy Kandigai were already over. “Rest of the works would be over in two months and the government would take steps to provide an uninterrupted supply of water to the people by storing rainwater in this reservoir,” he added.

Krishna water from Kandaleru in Andhra would be diverted to the new reservoir through the new 8.6 km linking canal branching out of Krishna Canal about two km from the zero point in Oothukottai. This apart, catchments areas like Karadiputhur and Balakrishnapuram would also fill the reservoir, which would get two fillings (0.5 tmcft per filling) every year.

The engineer further said that though Krishna water would be diverted to the reservoir, its own catchments would be sufficient to fill up the reservoir. The water would be transported through a 66-km-long pipeline to Poondi reservoir, from where it would be used for drinking water supply.

The WRD also undertaking desilting of Chembarambakkam, Poondi, Red Hills and Cholavaram reservoirs at a cost of Rs 30.34 crore. By desilting these four drinking water reservoirs of the city, the storage capacity of 1.904 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) will be restored.