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State Government | Tamil Nadu - India | PID: 187548
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Cholavaram reservoir, one of the waterbodies that supplies drinking water to Chennai, will have more capacity to store water this year. After several months of planning, work started recently to desilt the lake
Officials of the Water Resources Department (WRD) said nearly 1,200 lorry loads of silt had already been removed from Cholavaram reservoir. The desilting exercise would help enhance the lake’s storage by about 250 million cubic feet (mcft). Nearly 38 lakh cubic metres of silt is expected to be removed from the lake to restore it to its original capacity. The ?5.42 crore project also includes improvement works. The WRD aims to restore original capacity of all four reservoirs serving the city by removal of silt deposited in them. It also expects to net a revenue of ?700 crore from the sale of silt
The department is awaiting approval from the district administration to begin a ?20-crore project at Chembarambakkam and Red Hills reservoirs where storage has hit rock bottom. “We are also carrying out some of the long-pending improvement works such as repair of shutters, laying roads on top of the bunds, repairing branch channels and strengthening bunds,” said an official
To avoid flooding
While the improvement works are expected to be completed in a year, the desilting exercise may take up to five years. Once the work is completed, the reservoirs would have 2,000 mcft of additional capacity
The reservoirs are now able to store only 80% of their capacity of 11,257 mcft. This work would help avoid flooding and provide drinking water to the city for a more months, the official added
However, the work to clear silt in Poondi reservoir would be delayed due to a court directive
| Updated on: 11 - Apr - 2019
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