The northeast monsoon is now considered weak as the expected rainfall has been absent. Many now feel that there would be water crisis in Chennai city. To overcome this water crisis issue, metro water is now planning to tap additional sources to provide water supply to the people belonging to Chennai city.
The shocking piece of information is the water storage in the four reservoirs has been dwindling as the monsoon this year is yet to bring heavy rains. It is now brought out that as many as 12 abandoned quarries have been identified by the metro water agency in Erumaiyur near Thirumudivakkam. It is known that there are quarries present in Sikkarayapuram near Mangadu that could also provide drinking water to Chennai residents. These above mentioned quarries would provide as much as 40 million litres of drinking water every day.
There are 3 lakes present in Retteri, Ayanambakkam and Perumbakkam etc and these lakes would also be utilised to provide drinking water to the residents of Chennai. To ascertain the portability, water agencies had tested samples from these water bodies present in the above mentioned places in Chennai. Another short term plan to address the water crisis issue is by hiring agricultural wells in places like Poondi, Tamaraipakkam well fields. As per the metro water officials it is now said that these wells would have the capacity to provide drinking water supply up to 100 million litres per day or mld. The officials later stated that the tenders to rent wells in the areas like Siruvanur, Movur, Melanur, Ramarajan Kandigai and Magaral near metro water owned fields etc are in the process. It must be taken into account that the present storage in the reservoirs in the city would come for 2 months as the storage water now stands at 14 percent capacity. The water drawn from Veeranam tank would come for a period of 3 months. It is said that if the supply from the tank is suspended then wells present in the Paravanar river belt would be revived.
An official belonging to the metro water department expressed his views and spoke about how with the present resources water supply of 675 mld is managed now. He later hinted the possibility of utilising the buffer resources if the reservoirs do not get sufficient rainfall by the end of 2018. For the growing needs of the Chennai city, the water agency has also launched a study to explore new aquifers.