NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, JAN 24
The Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD Board) has provided nearly 2,000 million litres a day of drinking water to across all districts barring Chennai during December 2019.
This is the first time in the history of TWAD Board that such a huge quantity of water has been supplied.
A release from C.N. Mahesvaran, Managing Director, TWAD Board said that there has been a steady rise in the drinking water supply since May 2017.
TWAD supplied 1,816 mld in May last year and it was further increased to 2,000 mld in December 2019. As the major dams across the State have a combined storage of 158 thousand million cubic feet of water (TMC) against their total capacity of 200 TMC, TWAD is confident to maintain the supply for another five months.
Moreover, the average groundwater table has also increased by three metres in January this year. The water table has risen from 17.5 metres to 14.5 metres observed in May last year. The Board observed the water level through 1,286 wells.
The Board has identified reasons for deficiency in its distribution system through a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis. Some of them were power supply interruptions, leak and bursts in pipeline, over-drawal and illegal tapping of water in certain areas.
The Board has initiated water tanker supply to un-served areas in places such as Ramanathapuram and took up work to revamp pipeline infrastructure, augment sources and improve supply.
TWAD has one State-level water testing laboratory, 31 district level and 56 sub district level laboratories for monitoring water quality and residents may test water quality at a cost of Rs. 1,000, the release added.
