CHENNAI: Not just the heat but water, or lack thereof, is giving nightmares to Chennaiites as well. The city’s Metrowater has cut down water supply and raised an alarm on the crisis the city is facing, as temperatures hover around the 40 degrees Celsius mark with reservoirs drying up and the groundwater table falling. The four reservoirs supplying water to Chennai have less than one thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of water. The reservoirs in Poondi and Cholavaram have dried up.
Chembarambakkam and Red Hills are on the verge of drying, with only 988 mcft of water left in the reservoirs to supply the entire city. The city, which was getting 830 million litres a day (MLD) of water, has reduced its supply. “Now it has been reorganised to 550 MLD to continue the supply till the onset of the monsoon season. This includes piped supply of water as well as water supplied through tankers,” said a Metrowater statement.
Chennai Metrowater has hired an additional 250 tankers and increased its tanker strength to 770 to supply water to far flung areas which are facing water crisis.
But the mantra for Metrowater now is ‘conservation of water’. “People drawing groundwater by using electric motors in the morning should again draw water only in the evening,” says an official release from Metrowater while highlighting the need to conserve water by Chennaiites.
“Minimum nine hours gap should be maintained between two consecutive withdrawals. Then only the water spring will be normal,” Metrowater said.
The managing director, Chennai Metrowater, V Arun Roy says Metrowater has taken all steps to find out the sources of water wherever it is located and make arrangements to draw water and maintain distribution but it is the responsibility of people to protect the water sources. Metrowater is looking at plugging the leaks from the residential pipe or public fountains. A research study shows that the typical loss from a continuous 10-hour leakage of water from a single tap will be 20 litres.
“If the same is occurring in 10 lakh houses then the total loss each day works out to two crore litres which can easily be saved by closing all pipes after every use.” Metrowater has urged Chennaiites not to use potable water for watering plants and trees. “The grey water that comes from bathrooms can be recycled with treatment facilities and can be used for gardening, car washing and toilet flushing preventing usage of treated water.”