The integrated reservoir management centre, designed to automate Chennai’s major reservoirs operations and upgrade real-time monitoring of their storage, is ready for commissioning.
The World Bank-aided ₹32-crore project, executed by the Water Resources Department (WRD), aims at mitigating floods, increasing response time, and facilitating transparency in sharing details about the reservoirs.
Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin is expected to inaugurate the centre on Varuna Salai near Napier Bridge.
The waterbodies, which are prime sources of drinking water supply, now have a combined storage of 11,175 million cubic feet (mcft), which is 95% of their storage capacity.
WRD officials said a marginal amount of water was still being released from Chembarambakkam and Poondi reservoirs to balance storage. These waterbodies continue to receive inflow from catchment areas.
Once the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)-based decision support system is in place, the department will be able to remotely operate the reservoir shutters from the centralised monitoring facility in the city.
The waterbodies in Chembarambakkam, Red Hills, and Poondi have been equipped with various automation facilities, including gate position sensors and automated rain gauges, to measure inflow and outflow in the reservoirs and from various points in the catchment areas.
The decision support system will collate data from multiple sources to assess the precise time required for the reservoirs to fill up and to determine timely water releases to avert flash floods and enhance operational efficiency during the summer.
The centralised monitoring facility will be integrated with on-site control rooms constructed at the reservoir sites. “We plan to cover two other city reservoirs in Thervoy Kandigai Kannankottai and Cholavaram in the next phase. Such SCADA-based automated system will be installed in all dams across the State in a phased manner, and monitored from the reservoir management centre in Chennai,” an official said.
The department also plans to cover major tanks such as Madurantakam and Pillaipakkam in the next phases to manage both floods and droughts.
