About 7.4 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) has been added to the combined storage of 15 major irrigation reservoirs in Tamil Nadu after the spell of rain in the last one week.
As on November 9, their combined storage was 75.42 tmc ft as against their total capacity of about 195 tmc ft. On Thursday morning, it went up to around 82.8 tmc ft.
In other words, the increase was 3.8 percentage points — the reservoirs recorded storage of 42.4%, up from 38.6%.
In the week ending November 15, the State received about 5.5 cm rainfall against the normal 4 cm. During the period from October 1 to November 15, the total amount of rainfall was 24.2 cm against the anticipated 27.8 cm.
As of now, only two reservoirs — Vaigai and Perunchani, both in southern districts — were almost full, with their storage being 5.787 tmc ft and 2.457 tmc ft against the capacity of 6.091 tmc ft and 2.89 tmc ft respectively.
Mullaperiyar, meant for irrigation in many southern districts, had relatively better storage than several others. Its storage was 5.106 tmc ft against the allowed capacity of 7.666 tmc ft. As for the dams of the Cauvery basin, Amaravathi fared better than Mettur and Bhavanisagar. Against the capacity of 4.047 tmc ft, its storage was 2.907 tmc ft. In the case of Mettur and Bhavanisagar, the storage was 25.242 tmc ft (capacity: 93.47 tmc ft) and 13.175 tmc ft (32.5 tmc ft) respectively.
In the first half of November, the State received 5.45 tmc ft of Cauvery water, which was slightly higher than what had been allowed (5.17 tmc ft) by the Cauvery Water Management Authority for the period of November 1-23. Between June 1 and November 15, the total quantity realised was 63.46 tmc ft.
