The Tamil Nadu government is taking steps to supply drinking water to people, Chief Minister K Palaniswami said yesterday.
With reservoirs supplying water to Chennai drying up and ground water levels plummeting in the absence of rain, water has become scarce. People are using water supplied through tankers for drinking and washing as the ground water levels have gone down, he said.
The reservoirs - Cholavaram (full capacity 1,081 million cubic feet) and Redhills (3,300 mcft) - which cater to the Chennai’s water needs are dry while the storage at Poondi reservoir is 24 mcft as against a full capacity of 3,231 mcft, according to Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Chennai Metro).
The Chembarambakkam lake (full capacity 3,645 mcft) has a water level of just 1 mcft.
Palaniswami said water from desalination projects is also being distributed and urged the citizens to co-operate with the government as ground water will be supplied for the next four-five months till rains begin in October-November.
Regarding water from the Telugu Ganga Scheme or Krishna Water, Palaniswami said water could be released to Tamil Nadu only if there is 8 tmc of water in Kadaleru dam in Andha Pradesh.
The water level at the dam is presently about 4 tmc. Palaniswami also said that water from the Mettur Dam is being released to fill the Veeranam lake to supply drinking water to Chennai.
Meanwhile, a severe heatwave killed 12 more people in Bihar in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll over the past three days to 90, officials said.
However unofficially, the heatwave has claimed more than 250 lives in three days across a dozen districts. Deaths were reported from Aurangabad, Gaya, Nawada and Jamui districts, where temperatures hovered around 45.8 to 42 degrees Celsius on June 15, 16 and 17.
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