No immediate solution: TN may suffer drought for 3 more years

Water shortage is not new to Chennai, but the seasonal issue has turned into a perennial problem. Capital Chennai with close to 10 lakh water connections and more than 80 million consumers will suffer from water shortage for at least next three years as there is no immediate solution with the government, admitted a senior official, who is now part of the water mitigation initiatives taken up by the state government.

A visit by this newspaper to MLA offices in north Chennai revealed that the legislators are spending more time attending to water shortage problems. Perambur MLA RD Sekhar, who assumed the new office on Thursday, had more than 15 visitors on day one, with 12 of them seeking water. Former mayor M Subramanian, who is also the Saidapet MLA was also busy on Thursday holding talks between the sulking residents of Saidapet and the Chennai Metro water officials regarding restoration of daily water supply.

“Both the public and the state had contributed to the current issue by not working on conservation-oriented solutions. With the private and agricultural borewells receding in Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram the situation will be worse for the next one month,” the informed official told DT Next. Though the state has started taping water in abandoned quarries since last year, the groundwater in Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur has been dipping alarmingly since this March.

Mushrooming multi-storey buildings without water recycling units has also added to the shortage along the entire IT corridor. The local administration department’s policy to go in for concrete roads since 2012 had also emerged as a disaster affecting the groundwater recharge, the official added.

“The city is now surviving on Veeranam and two desalination plants, but the demand has been growing by 10 per cent every year for south Chennai. The annual demand in Central and north Chennai is also growing by 3 to 5 per cent steadily but the water resource from the catchment area is the same. Though the water treatment capacity has increased over the years, there is a shortage during summer,” a senior official with Chennai Metro Water told DT Next.

With parts of old Chennai reporting failure in private borewells, the public is forced to rely on metro water. “Our engineers are spending sleepless nights to the increased demand for drinking water,” the official said adding that the state has taken steps to provide drinking water in Chennai

“I am trying my best to coordinate with the Metro Water engineers to provide supply through water tankers. I have asked the officials to provide hand pumps so that the basic requirement can be met in roads that are narrow where tankers cannot enter,” RD Sekhar told this newspaper.

“Closure of wells, unchecked contamination of water bodies, change in water usage pattern and lack of interest to hydrological studies had contributed to the alarming water shortage,” said ecologist K Brinda of Biodiversity Conservation Foundation in Trichy. The state has been mooting the third desalination plant, but the focus should be more on restoring the existing water bodies and regenerating the lost rainforests, she added.