The Times of India 16.07.2009

Water woes for residents of Chromepet, Pallavaram

CHENNAI: Last week, K Prasanna of Pallavaram was embarrassed to tell his friends and relatives not to visit his house for the next few months. He himself has stayed back at his office in Royapettah many times. Reason? the acute water crisis in the Pallavaram and Chromepet areas. On Wednesday, the CPM's local unit organised a public meeting in Chromepet on the crisis.

Till a month ago, the Pallavaram municipality was supplying water once in two days. Now, it is supplied for a few hours once a week. About 1.6 crore litres of water is the estimated requirement for the 2.5 lakh population every day. Only 64 lakh litres are supplied now.

Many residents have made their own arrangements. The BRR Nagar Residents Welfare Association in Chromepet constructed a tank to store the 27,000 litres it buys from private lorries every week for its members.

"With most wells and borewells dry, every day is a struggle,'' said Naganathan, a resident and shopkeeper in Pallavaram.

Many of the areas where residents got Rs 2,000 each from the state government last year after their houses were flooded are also affected by the crisis.

"Almost all the five lakes in the municipality limits have been illegally encroached upon or used to dump garbage. Steps should be taken to protect them to ensure that there is no crisis next year,'' said N Gunasekaran of Chromepet.

Many shopkeepers said even private lorries were taking two days to supply one load of water.

Municipal chairman E Karunanidhi said piped water was being supplied once in 2-3 days to many areas. But the supply had been disrupted many times as pipes were damaged due to the road-expansion works near Vandalur. "During the previous AIADMK regime, only 40 lakh litres were suppled a day; now we are supplying 64 lakh litres. We also supply 120 loads of water every day through lorries to areas where there is no piped supply. This week, we asked Metrowater to provide 10 lakh litres water to the Chromepet and Pallavaram areas daily. We hope this plea will be accepted,'' he added.

The municipality drafted a Rs 64-crore scheme for water supply and passed a resolution in the council meeting to get it implemented under the centrally-sponsored Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.