Siruvani overflow hits a century
The Siruvani Dam that supplies drinking water to one half of the 105 sq km city has hit a ‘century’ – water has been overflowing from the dam continuously for more than 100 days.This is the first time the overflow has continued for so many days, say Corporation officials.Water first overflowed this year on July 7. Since then, torrential rain in the catchments has kept the dam not only full but also led to an unprecedented continuous overflow, according to the officials.Now that the North-East Monsoon has taken over from the South West Monsoon, the Corporation hopes that enough water will be available in the dam to ensure that the city and the suburbs dependent on the Siruvani scheme will not face scarcity in the coming summer.After more than 2,200 mm rain from the South West Monsoon till September, the dam is experiencing good rain this month also because of the North-East Monsoon, officials said on Friday.Heavy rain from June to September brought copious inflow to the dam and this had helped in maintaining a good supply in the city.With not enough water tanks to store the surplus, the Corporation is forced to provide daily supply of Siruvani water in many parts of the city without making an official announcement.This is not a full-fledged re-scheduling of supply, say officials.The civic body indicates it will switch back to the normal alternate day supply when the overflow stops.At present, the city gets 75 million litres a day from the Siruvani Dam and 65 million litres under the Pilloor scheme.
