Nilacharal

TN Government's New Schemes for Water Management in Chennai

Apart from bringing water from far away distances and requesting AP for more water, Tamilnadu government has come out with few long-term strategies. Foremost amongst the new schem is the one named as " Revised Chennai Veeranam Project". This is aimed at bringing water from 235 kms away from Chennai. This water would be purified at Vadakoothu near Chennai before distributing it. 720 crores is allocated for this project which would bring abut 180 million litres of water per day through steel tubes to Chennai. This is about one third requirement of water in Chennai per day. Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board would handle this project and it is expected to be completed in the next 18 months. Also, the government has ordered for a feasibility study on bringing water from Tirunelveli dams (Papanasam dam in extreme Southern Tamilndau) to Chennai by rail.

Another important scheme of this government is to dig bore wells with compressor pumps to meet the water needed for non-drinking purposes. These bore wells would be dug at 133 slums identified for this purpose. This project would be stated with immediate effect and it is expected to be completed within a week at the cost of about 132 crores. The government should invest all its energy and efforts to accelerate these activities rather than targeting the Chennai Corporation. Jaya would do well by not inviting another trouble in quick succession (after the goof up with Mr Karunanidhi's arrest) by dissolving Chennai Corporation. The government should overlook its own order to Corporation wherein the government had threatened a possible dissolution of the Chennai Corporation at the pretext of stifling the Opposition voice. It should not insist that the Corporation should respond by 26th July, 2001. On its part, the Chennai Corporation should come to the rescue of the people by participating in the efforts taken by the government rather than settling political scores.

Pragmatic and simple Solutions for Effective Water Management

Some technical solutions are suggested here to improve the water harvesting or water retainment in Chennai. These may prove effective if practiced with the full support of government. The NGO's and Technical Support Communities should propagate some of these approaches and help in the micro-level implementation of these approaches. The educated and concerned communities like "Silent revolution" should deliberate on the following approaches and should do the necessary things to improve the society.

Effective Water Storage in Lakes and in Catchment Zones

Basically the lakes used to be the water catchment zones and they collect and store the rainwater to be sued in that full year. Many lakes after they got dried up transformed into concrete habitats. This reduced the catchment locations in and around Chennai. Even the lakes that are supplying water to Chennai such as Poondi, Puzhal, Chozhavaram, Sembarapakkam, and Red Hills need to be desilted. In stead of desilting the lakes and deepening them, the powers-that-be was all along busy with the de-sanding of rivers. This made even the water in rivers to become stagnant pools. The government must initiate an action plan to desilt the lakes that supply the water on a periodic basis. This should be done for all the lakes in the State and not just for those lakes which supply water to Chennai. Also, some sort of a wax or polymer coating on the top of lakes would reduce the evaporation rate of water.

The government may identify few locations outside Chennai or some slums within Chennai to convert them as lakes or some sort of rainwater catchment zones. Evacuating slums for this purpose may require a political will but the government has to think on these lines. In fact, the most water-starved regions of Gujarat (Kutch region) have successfully demonstrated the usefulness of this approach ("rain water harvesting") with scant rainfall.

Decentralized Approaches

The level of rainfall over Tamilnadu, Chennai in particular, has not changed significantly in the last few decades. The reduction in open lands to catch rainwater and the cutting of trees has reduced the ground water level to a considerable extent. Added to this, the increase in the dependence on bore well water and exploding population in Chennai led to the water scarcity that we face today. After many buildings came up in Chennai, all the rainwater is allowed to drain into gutters and there by allowed to mingle with sea water, without trying to retain them in the ground. Thus, the distribution of rainwater was meddled with and we reap the consequences now. . ....more