Restore lake, help parched Chennai

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With Veeranam lake drying up and the four city reservoirs storing only 1/3 of the total storage (11.057 tmcft), water managers are left hoping for an early northeast monsoon.

However, a water resource like Porur lake, which was once an insurance for Chennai during droughts, remains unutilised. Till early 2011, the lake supplied 2 million litres per day to the city. Chennai metro water stopped drawing water from the lake when its pollution level went beyond the limits prescribed for domestic supply, senior CMWSSB officials said.

Water managers attribute the poor water quality to careless draining of sewage into the lake from adjoining areas which lack proper sewerage facility. The areas have been brought under the city corporation limit only after expansion.

Draining of sewage into the lake could be arrested and water drawn for domestic supply after developing proper sewerage facilities in the area, another CMWSSB official said.

His argument is that the lake has enough water to meet the needs of two divisions, but remains untapped due to public apathy and poor maintenance by the local water resource department (WRD) officials.

Chennai metro water, which requires not less than 1tmcft per month, supplies about 830 mld to the city. Porur lake might account for only 2 tmcft but help improve supply to several thousand households in the neighbourhood, reasoned a WRD official.

Pipelines, among other requisite infrastructure, are readily available for conveying water from the lake to K.K. Nagar. Apart from lack of sewers, as a failure of the civic administration, the local residents have dumped solid waste into the lake.

A part of the lake has already vanished as local land sharks covered the water-spread area with solid earth, particularly construction debris, and sold them as plots to ignorant individual buyers.