Increased storage level in four major lakes to help water supply till Oct

According to Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Metrowater) data, Poondi Lake, which was bone dry a few weeks ago had storage of 1,593 Mcft against its total storage capacity of 3,231 Mcft, as on Wednesday.

The lake receives an inflow of 837 cusecs and the Metrowater is drawing the same amount of water for distribution. In overall, four lakes - Poondi, Cholavaram, Redhills and Chembarambakam lakes - had total storage of 5,095 Mcft (5 TMC) against their total combined storage of 11,257 Mcft, which is around 45.26 per cent storage.

Meanwhile, Cholavaram lake also received a subsequent quantity of water during the rains and the lake's present storage stands at 210 Mcft against its total capacity of 1,081 Mcft. Redhills and Chembarambakkam lakes had storage of 2,087 Mcft and 1,205 Mcft of water.

The data also suggest that the water levels in the city lakes on Wednesday higher than the water levels recorded on the same day the previous year. As on December 11, 2018, the lakes had combined storage of only 1,670 Mcft.

Owing to the severe drought this summer, the Metrowater had stopped drawing water from the lakes, during which the storage went all-time low of less than one per cent against the total storage capacity. A few days ago, the Metrowater had increased the water supply to the city to 650 million litres per day (MLD) from 525 MLD. Earlier, the water manager had cut the quantity of water supply to protract the supply till the onset of monsoon. An official said that the Metrowater could supply enough water to the city till next October using lake water and desalinated water, even though loss due to evaporation.