Kovai stares at water shortage as Siruvani Dam begins to dry up

This has worried water manages as the available water would be sufficient to meet the drinking water requirements till the first week of June. Water drawn from the dam, which has a storage capacity of 650 million cusecs, is supplied to 36 wards out of the 100 wards in the old corporation area.

The rest of the wards are supplied drinking water through Pillur drinking water scheme. The Siruvani dam had overflowed last August when the South West Monsoon brought heavy rains resulting in floods in Kerala. Since then, a maximum of 100 million litres per day (10 crore litres) were drawn from the dam.

“With the start of summer, 80 MLD of water was drawn from the dam. As rains continued to evade the Siruvani catchments areas, water drawn from the dam, was gradually reduced to reach 53 MLD (5.30 crore litres) per day,” said the official.

Now, TWAD officials have claimed that the current water stock can last only till the first week of June. “Water level is dipping by ten centimetres every day. The storage may improve if the South West Monsoon sets in earlier and brings good rainfall,” said an official.

But, the official sounded optimistic that they could overcome water crisis with steady supply from Aliyar and Pillur dams. Meanwhile, the director of Agro-Climate Research Station at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) SP Ramanathan predicted that rains would arrive this month.

“Coimbatore used to receive an average of 137 mm of summer shower annually. This year, however, it did not rain in March and received only 19.8mm in the last week of April. The district has so far received only 23.6 mm of rains in this summer,” he said. Ramanathan also said that the South West monsoon, which usually brings copious amount of rainfall to Coimbatore, may set in by the end of this month.