Tapping down on drought

Chennai has been declared one among 24 districts drought hit by the Tamil Nadu government.

Of the combined total storage capacity of reservoirs supplying water to Chennai - 11,257 million cubic feet, not even five per cent is available now. The reservoirs and lakes have gone dry.

Every day, 105 million litres of Veeranam water is brought to Chennai from Neyveli through pipelines, 130 million litres is brought from Tiruvallur district farm lands, 100 million litres each from desalination plants in Meenjur and Nemili. Apart from this, 30 million litres is obtained from the sand quarries in and around Chennai.

In 2018, the city received just 390 mm rainfall from the NE monsoon. This against normal of 842 mm. The city received 432 mm of rainfall during the SW monsoon against normal of 460 mm. A Met official said, "The NE monsoon failed because conditions were not favourable for the formation of low pressure areas. Most of them drifted north or towards the Arabian Sea taking away moisture with them. Gaja was the only notable cyclone in TN. Towards the end of April, we can expect rainfall in some parts."

This year’s drought is one of the worst in Chennai’s history. Weather blogger R Pradeep John, who runs the FB page ‘Tamil Nadu Weatherman’ says, “For the first time since 2003, Chennai's annual rainfall did not cross 1,000mm. The failure of the NE monsoon is the reason behind this.” Deputy Director General of Meteorology, S Balachandran, at the Regional Meteorological Centre, says, “NE monsoon rainfall last year was 24 per cent less than normal. North and North-West regions of TN received 50 per cent less rainfall than normal. Rainfall was generally low when compared with normal level in almost all regions because of which water levels in the reservoirs are low.”

Chennai’s one-day water requirement is 1,200 mn litres. Till last December, 850 mn litres was distributed. Currently, the authorities are supplying 550 mn litres of water every day to Chennai's residents who are now increasingly dependent on water tankers. It falls short of WHO recommended drinking water limit of 3.7 litres of water per day for men and 2.7 litres of water per day for women.

Banumathi, a housemaid and a resident of Thiruvalluvar Salai says, “All the residents in my locality have to sign a water request and we get it through a Metrowater's water tanker once a week. Each person is allocated five buckets of water at Re 1 per bucket. Due to traffic problems in the mornings, the tankers come only at 3am and we have to stay awake whole night.”

A resident of Teynampet says, “We have a borewell at our house but it has dried up. We tried booking 9,000 litres of water for Rs 700 through Metrowater but they said that the waiting period is one month. Hence, we have booked from a private water tanker company. The minimum we can book for is 24,000 litres, but after much bargaining they agreed to let us buy 12,000 litres of water at Rs 2,500.”

Private tankers supplying water to the city are also on the rise. According to a resident of Nungambakkam, “We get water from private players in quick time.” People depend on water supplied through 7,071 water tankers in the city. Residents told this newspaper that they have a 20-day waiting period if they book through Metrowater.

Water experts say that there was a time when Chennai, surrounded by waterbodies, was water rich. But now the city is reeling under severe water crisis. Kotralai river in North Chennai, Adyar in South Chennai and Cooum in Central Chennai, all are polluted beyond limits. There were 39 temple tanks which used to store rain water and ground water would be recharged in the surrounding areas. But now most temple tanks are dry and flow of water into these tanks have been cut off due to unscientific development.

Says Proffesor Gnanaraj of Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS): “It has been two years since we identified 4,100 water bodies within the city limits and gave a report to the State government but so far we have received no response.”