Woman carries neighbours’ water burden, earns Rs 5,000 per month

B Nagammal, a resident of Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) on Thomas Road in T Nagar, is the wife of a car driver. She is a housewife and ran the family with her husband’s earnings. When the water crisis started becoming worse in the city, she realised she can help other families to fetch water and get paid for it. Currently, she earns Rs 5,000 per month.

“Five families in the apartment, who cannot be at home when the water tanker comes to our locality, have ‘employed’ me. They put drums near their doors and my job is to fill it every day. If water tanker fails to supply water, I would collect water from a nearby handpump,” she said.

Apart from filling neighbours’ drums, which could easily hold 13 pots of water each, Nagammal has to collect water for her family, which has five members. “Each family is paying me Rs 1,000 every month.”

Interestingly, every tenant in the slum board apartment has put a drum and connected it with an electric pump. “After filling the drums, we will pump the water to our tanks on the terrace so that we could get water in taps,” a resident said.