#TamilNaduWaterCrisis: Tamil Nadu thanks Kerala for help; seeks two million liters of water daily
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Chennai, Jun 21: Tamil Nadu is suffering from the scorching heat with water scarcity. yesterday, Chennai received 1st rain after 196 days but, the water crisis still remains in the state. Today, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami said, his govt. ad thanked Kerala’s one-time offer to supply two million liters of water to tide over the crisis in Chennai but had requested it to keep up the supply for a while by raising the storage level of Mullaperiyar dam.
While addressing the media in Chennai, CM Palaniswami denied that Tamil Nadu had declined Kerala’s offer. He also said, Instead it had requested Kerala to supply two million liters a day for some time instead of just for a day.
Thanking Kerala for the offer, he said the State could meet Tamil Nadu’s needs by increasing the storage level of Mullaperiyar reservoir. Addressing the issue, EPS said, the government had decided to bring 15 lakh liters of water from Jolarpet by train for the next 6 weeks.
Besides, arrangements had been made to bring water through pipes from Veeranam lake to the city. To enable this, water from Mettur dam had been diverted to the lake to augment supply.
Palanisami said that reservoirs of Poondi, Chembarambakkam, Red Hills and Sholavaram had gone bone dry because of monsoon failure. Because of deficient rain, groundwater had also gone down.
Tamil Nadu also failed to get its due of 12 t.m.c. ft of Krishna water from Andhra Pradesh, Palanisami said. The Andhra Government was supplying only two t.m.c. ft of water a day as the level in the Kandeluru storage point had gone down from the minimum t.m.c. it needed to pump water.
He said Chennai Metro water was supplying 525 million liters of water a day to the city by tapping various sources including field wells and stone quarry reservoirs.
The Chief Minister said district administrations had also been instructed to ensure uninterrupted supply to villages.