Chennai: As many as 4,000 private water tankers were off the roads in Pallikaranai, Thoraipakkam, OMR and ECR stretches, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts demanding the government legally to revoke court order directing owners of lorries not to exploit groundwater sources and groundwater should be excluded from mines and mineral department on Monday.
However, no officials called upon members to hold talks and water scarcity is likely to loom large, if such indefinite strike continued.
According to owners of tankers, there are around 4,300 such tankers from Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts and they fetch water from private agricultural renting borewells and other ground water resources in private lands. A case was filed regarding this in the court, which directed the government to prevent such private tankers from drawing water, taking ground water table into account.
“We are supplying water to apartments, corporate companies, commercial establishments, and star hotels in and around Chennai region. In such a condition, revenue officials harass us showing the court order,” said R. Pothiraj, member of South Chennai Private Water Tankers Owners of Association. He also stressed that drawing water from mines and mineral department should be excluded.
Even as the first day strike did not largely affect supply of drinking water, the lorry owners claimed, “strike will have cascading effect gradually. Further, we are ready to hold talks with the government and our demands should be sorted out as early as possible,” said another member.
Areas like Mudichur, Padappai and Kovilambakkam and Nanmangalam witnessed strike and many lorry driver preferred to park their tankers Pallavaram-Pallikaranai radial road and Tambaram-Maduravayal bypass road. Traffic was not affected anymore, said a police officer.
Police already warned of severe actions against those lorry owners, who park their lorries on the arterial roads, as it will create traffic congestion. “We monitored throughout the day, if there was any violation. However, all the lorries were parked along the roads and other grounds,” said a police officer.
At a time, when northeast monsoon is yet to set in, the strike by water tankers has set the cat among the pigeons among the public.
