A parched history
CHENNAI: Colonised in 1639 by Francis Dey, Chennai has always fought for water at the base of the tap — Kuzhai adi sandai — said historian V Sriram, while narrating the history of Madras’ tryst with water management at a talk held on Wednesday. It was one among a series of events as part of the Water Matters exhibition held at the Periyar Science and Technology Convention Centre. The month-long exhibition portrays a set of text panels, exhibits and other interactive elements with reference to the prolonged water crises Chennai has been facing. Organised by the collaborative effort of the US Consulate General Chennai, Care Earth Trust and the Smithsonian Institute, the exhibition covers the intricacies of water management that the city and its citizens have been subjected to ever since its conception.
“In 1939, when the third century of the colonial city of Madras was celebrated, Krishnaswami, an engineer at the Madras Corporation, said ‘the entire history of Madras can be summed up as one perpetually groping for water’,” Sriram said. He took us back in time to 1639 when Francis Dey set up Fort St George with the intent of creating security and not water management. He built the fort near river Elambore, which has now vanished and been replaced by the NSC Bose Road. Currently, the remnants of the river form a moat outside the fort walls.
The talk focussed on how water management was dealt with after the independence; how each government in power had managed the scarcity of water in the city. “One method that seemed to stick was by expanding the city to cover more sources of water. Under the label of the Greater Corporation of Chennai, agricultural lands were grabbed without any questions asked,” he said. He spoke of the separation of Tamil Nadu from Andhra Pradesh and the water war between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, pinning it on consumption. “Only if each one of us decides to conserve will we be able to survive and implement adequate water management practices,” he said. “Most of the elite have always been in the central Chennai.
As per the UN standards, the ideal supply of water must be 135 to 150 lpcd (litres per capita per day). Our core city uses 114 lpcd, while the suburbs receive 40 lpcd and slums get only 25 lpcd of water,” he shared.
The most common misconception is that Chennai is a rain-starved city. But are we, really? “As per the records, we are actually a rain surplus city. The natural reservoirs that store our water have been encroached and built upon causing most of the rainwater to flow back into the sea. By the time a solution is implemented, it has usually been too late,” Sriram concluded.