CHENNAI: Residents of Illalur village, an agrarian hamlet a few kilometres away from OMR near Tiruporur, never imagined that one day they would have to buy can water for consumption. There was a time when groundwater in that village would be available at a depth of just 10 or 20 feet.
But their fate changed about three to four years ago, when a few farmers started selling their wells to private water suppliers catering to Chennai’s needs. According to the villagers, that was the beginning of the water crisis they are facing now, both for agriculture and drinking.
“Those who are selling water are earning lakhs of rupees every month. But for the rest of the farmers, it is loss of livelihood. Not just that, we are facing even drinking water shortage as the water level has gone down so much,” says M Karnan, a farmer, whose house is next to his farmland in Illalur. The water in his house which tastes sweet is from his farm well. “It’s because of this taste that water companies are targeting our village so much,” he explains. Residents of several villages that dot the stretch up to Vandalur had almost similar tales about their groundwater getting depleted in the last few years. They blame the packaged drinking water companies that are mostly located at Mambakkam. The villagers say that water is presently extracted from about 30 villages on that stretch. While Illalur is the most preferred, even other villages like Kayar, Alathur, Venbedu, Echangadu, Ponmar, Malakottaiyur and Kilkottaiyur are increasingly being tapped by the water companies.
“Earlier, they were extracting water from areas like Medavakkam. As the water level had gone down there, they are moving to interior villages like ours,” says Arun Kumar, a local political activist in Panangkattupakkam village. For the past few weeks, Arun Kumar has been busy distributing small pamphlets in his village to gather support from the villagers to stop extraction of groundwater from his village.
“About 50 lorries, each having a capacity of about 20,000 litres made trips to the village. This means 10 lakh litres of per day and 3 crore litres per month and 36 crore litres in a year. We are struggling for drinking water, while the water businessmen are sucking out so much water from our village,” reads a pamphlet.
“The water has gone down to about 60 feet now. We are not able to extract water even from the panchayat well, so there has been a drinking water shortage for the last two summers,” says E Murthy, president of the Panangkattupakkam village panchayat.
When the farmers and even the village panchayats are unable to deepen their wells due to high costs, for private water suppliers it is no hurdle. “To dig a new well, we need about `10 lakh. We cannot afford that much. But the private companies finance them for some farmers, who sell the water and are sinking wells deeper,” says Sadasivam, a resident of Illalur village. The condition of roads in these villages bear testimony to the number of trips the water tanker lorries make every day. They are all battered and the villagers say it is due to the numerous trips made by tanker lorries. Dotting the road on both sides are the collection points for the water tankers. The pipes from the borewells are kept a few feet above in the air so that lorries can be parked under it and easily filled with water. “There are at least 15 such collection points, which have been built by the water companies. We have argued with individual land owners, but the money they get is huge. So, how will they listen to us. Everyone knows it will take the village only to the path of destruction,” rues Sadasivam.
Just as Minjur in the north of the city, where groundwater has entirely depleted due to excessive extraction and sea water intrusion, these villages are also located within a few kilometres away from the coast. So, the villagers fear they must stop the mindless extraction of groundwater before it becomes too late. But the villagers feel the water companies have more influence. “It is a few police officers in the Intelligence wing, who first invited the water companies to the lands owned by them. So, any voice of protest is suppressed with threat of arrest and false cases,” says Karnan. However, another neighbouring village Sonalur got reprieve from the Madras High Court, which banned the extraction of ground water from the village by private water companies. “Luckily, we got the court order and the private tankers have stopped coming to our village. So, this summer, we were able to manage water for both agriculture and drinking water,” says A Janathan, a resident of Sonalur.