Chennai: From now on, Greater Chennai that comprises suburbs located in Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts will have to rely only on artificial ways to meet its drinking water needs. The capital city has lost its eco balance in water conservation. The surplus rains since June has completely gone waste without serving drinking water shortage.
Further the recharging groundwater is no match to the Chennai’s population influx, said a senior municipal administration official. The two desalination plants have been the saviour for water starved Chennai and now the state is focused on establishing the third desalination plant. A re-tender has been floated again with August 31 as the last date for submission of forms. The project will be on design build and maintenance base at Nemmeli, East Coast Road. The 150 MLD project will be supported through a loan from kfw, Germany, the official said.
Justifying the need for desalination plant the officer further explained that the inflow of all the four major water bodies catering to Chennai has been meagre for the past two months. Since June, after the onset of southwest monsoon, Greater Chennai has received its normal rains.
Both Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur that have the catchment areas of Chennai had also received its average rainfall of 153 mm of rains, but there is no visible inflow of water into any of the reservoirs or lakes, the official explained.
According to Chennai metro water sources, the total storage capacity of Chennai reservoirs is 11057 mcft and the storage hit an all time low in June second week, where the storage stooped below 100 mcft.
Till now, the storage has not crossed a paltry two percent despite two months of intermittent rains.
“We are waiting for Mettur water to reach delta and Veeranam or the neighbouring Andhra has to release Krishna water from Kandeluru, only then drinking water supply which has been reduced to 430 mld can be increased further”, a metro water official said.
Poor construction of stormwater drains compounds commuters woes
Concrete roads, beautification projects and stormwater drains have assured the civic contractors of brisk business in Chennai. Every year around a huge sum of Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500 crore is spent, but these projects have no way helped to recharge the stormwater or alleviate water-logging.
On Wednesday when Chennai witnessed showers for less than an hour, traffic came to standstill along the arterial roads of Chennai like Anna Salai, Poonamallee high road and 100 feet road stretch opposite Koyambedu mofussil bus terminus.
Egmore, Royapettah, Saidapet, Washermenpet and Thiruvottriyur also witnessed heavy piling of traffic adding to the peak hour congestion. Motorists were seen honking losing their control on ECR and OMR where the puddles of water reduced the width of the roads near Neelangarai and Sholinganallur forcing vehicles to ply at snail pace.
“The recent CAG report tabled in the assembly last month made it clear that the city corporation wasted Rs 54.33 crore under Chennai mega city mission through unplanned stormwater drains. The design and concept of existing storm water drains has to be reworked. These structures should have recharge wells to store the rain water, but as there are illegal drainage connections letting sewer in to stormwater drains again the system of stormwater fails wasting public money,” says U. Nathan, a retired metro water engineer.
