The Satyamurti Sagar at Poondi, the only dam constructed for Chennai’s drinking water requirements, is into its 80th year. Located about 58 km north-west of Chennai in Tiruvallur district, the Poondi reservoir, which is how it is called, was declared open on June 14, 1944, by the then Governor of the Madras Presidency, Arthur Hope, who had also laid its foundation on August 8, 1940. But, unlike the Mettur dam, which was inaugurated in August 1934 and named after the then Governor George Stanley, the Poondi dam, built across the Kosasthalaiyar, came to be known after its architect, S. Satyamurti (1887-1943), a Congress stalwart and contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji). During 1939-40, he served the Madras Corporation as the Mayor under a system of communal rotation when the term was for one year.
Well acquainted with problems
Satyamurti assumed office in November 1939, amid an acute water shortage with the failure of the northeast monsoon in 1938. He was well acquainted with the issues and problems of the city and the local body, as he had earlier served the Corporation for 15 years as a councillor and an alderman. Besides, by the late 1930s, he had carved a niche for himself as a seasoned parliamentarian — Member of the Madras Legislative Council (1923-29) and the Central Legislative Assembly (1935-39). When the Congress leader encountered, what he considered, the perpetual problem of drinking water shortage in the city, he deployed all his skills of articulation and persuasion, besides his rich experience, to ensure that the dream project — Poondi dam — took off.
At that time, there were only two tanks — Cholavaram and Red Hills — for the city water supply; they had to cater to farmers, too. (Now, apart from Satyamurti Sagar and the two tanks, Chembarampakkam, Thervoy Kandigai and Veeranam are available for supplying to Chennai). Both Cholavaram and Red Hills were fed mainly by the Kosasthalaiyar through an anicut at Tamaraipakkam. As is now, the Kosasthalaiyar was a seasonal river and it was, as pointed out by Executive Engineer U. Ananda Rao in his presentation before the Corporation Council in April 1940, “practically dry” for almost 10 months a year. Rao, who later became the Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, led a team of engineers in carrying out an investigation for the Poondi reservoir during January-April 1940.
Inadequate water storage
Despite Chennai experiencing floods and droughts at periodical intervals, the issue of inadequate water storage was felt even then, a matter that remains relevant today for Tamil Nadu, in general, and Chennai, in particular. Referring to the 1939 floods in the city and its neighbouring areas, Rao had explained to the Council that nearly three thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) had then gone waste through Tamaraipakkam, while Red Hills and Cholavaram did not fill, as the intense floods were of short duration and supply channels functioned only for 10 days, according to a report of The Hindu on April 19, 1940. It was against this background that the Poondi dam was conceived for the purposes of additional storage and flood regulation.
Having got the support of the councillors, Satyamurti turned to the British government for funding and impressed upon the authorities the need to overlook reservations about the project because of the Second World War. His biographer, P.G. Sundararajan, also known as Chitti, recorded in The Life of S. Satyamurti (1988) that the Mayor had pleaded with the government for one-half of the project cost as a grant to the Corporation. Eventually, the government agreed to meet one-third of the cost. As against the earlier estimate of ₹61.71 lakh, the project had cost ₹65 lakh. The Corporation’s share was ₹39.42 lakh. The cost increase was reported to be largely “due to the increased compensation that had to be paid for acquisition of land covered by the scheme,” stated a report of The Hindu on June 15, 1944. Originally scheduled to be completed in two years, the project took almost two more years as the execution slowed primarily because of Japan’s entry into the World War (December 1941); Chennai having been brought under the War Zone; and the impact of the floods in December 1942, January 1943 and October 1943.
Controversy over function
Once the funding was arranged, Satyamurti’s struggle for the project did not end as a controversy broke out over whether he could attend the foundation-laying ceremony, which took place in August 1940. Then, one of the policies of the Congress was to boycott government functions. But, in this case, Satyamurti was the Mayor and he had displayed, as The Hindu wrote in its editorial on August 9, 1940, “the dynamic drive, enthusiasm and organisation which have led to such a speedy clearing of financial and other hurdles…” Eventually, K. Venkataswami Naidu, leader of the Congress Municipal Party, came out in support of his colleague’s participation in the function as the project was “a great and important scheme”.
When the dam was commissioned in 1944, the key initiator of the project was no more. Satyamurti’s role was ignored at the dam inauguration function and by the authorities later. But his political “sishya” K. Kamaraj was not the one who would take kindly to any insult to his mentor. V.K. Narasimhan, in his Kamaraj: A Study (2008), mentioned that Kamaraj had “declined to receive a civic address” from the Corporation as the local body had failed to name the dam after Satyamurti. However, the Corporation Council, at a special meeting in January 1948, assuaged his sentiments by adopting a resolution unanimously that gave the dam its name — Satyamurti Sagar.
Level increased
Nearly 40 years later, as part of the Krishna Water Supply Project, the level of the dam was raised by two feet. The dam now can hold 3.231 tmc ft as against the original 2.6 tmc ft. Since September 1996, Krishna water, released by the Andhra Pradesh government, gets stored here first. There are two channels connecting the dam with Red Hills and Chembarampakkam, where water treatment plants are in operation.
Thanks to the water crisis during 1999-2004, an underground pipeline is running between Poondi and Red Hills for conveying water. It may not be an exaggeration to say that in the near future, Chennai may not get any other reservoir bigger than the Satyamurti Sagar.
