Chennai: Good mantra during the rainy season does not always mean encouragement for city water supply.
Heavy rain days have eaten about two thousand million cubic feet (TMCFT) drinking water in the last four days in the Kaweepuram district and Tiruvalur neighbors.
Authorities were forced to release a surplus of water from Poondi, Red Hills and Chosbarambakkam Reservoirs that quickly reached their full capacity thanks to a series of shower, senior engineer said from the Department of Public Works.
They began to release 2,000 cubic feet of water per second (Cusecs) from Poondi last week and 2,000 cusecs from Merah Bukit and Reservoir Chembarambakkam since last Sunday.
Three reservoirs are one of the main water sources of the city.
PWD also released 1,200 cusec water from the Cholavaram reservoir.
But why is the water surplus released early and why reservoir is not allowed to achieve full capacity? The engineer explained that the rules and regulations of the PWD Mandate compendium that all reservoirs must maintain their water level at least two legs under its full capacity.
This is very important during the rainy season.
Former Assistant PWD Executive Engineer S Thirunavukkarasu said the amendment must be brought into this provision in a summary of the rules to increase the level of storage.
Reservoirs that supply water to Chennai must be allowed to maintain levels on 1ft below the full reservoir level.
Bringing this change in the rules will help reduce the amount of water surplus released into the sea.
Test land based on permeability in bed reservoir and then taking a desility can also help in increasing water storage capacity in each reservoir, he said.