CHENNAI: As rain eluded Chennai and sun beating down, a group of students have taken upon themselves to quench the thirst of hundreds of fellow protestors at Marina. Their experiment of digging a small pit to extract clean drinking water on the shore had struck gold.
Coming as surprise to many, less than three-foot-deep and hardly 150 metres away from sea waters, the students were able to extract portable drinking water and supply it to hundreds of protestors who queued up to refill their empty bottles.
Though initially people were skeptical about the quality of water, soon it became a rage and people were seen saying the water was better than packaged drinking water. From toodlers to adults, all consumed it to beat the heat.
It all started with two friends Ashok Kumar and Madhavan, engineering students and sooner others too picked it up and four ‘wonder wells’ came up on the sea front opposite Vivekananda Illam, the epicentre of the ongoing agitation.
Madhavan told the Express that it took about an hour to make the well work. “We dug a 30-cm circular well with 3 ft depth and kept on draining the initial dirty water until we got the clear and clean water. We used cardboard boxes to protect the walls. In less than one hour, we were able to extract about 150 litres of water,” he said.
Another student Ajit, who is doing his charatered accountancy, said though water packets were being supplied it was not enough since the crowd swelled to record number. “So, we are trying our bit to meet the drinking water demand,” he said.