Who will pay for Tamil Nadu’s water woes?

Just days ahead of the poll notification when the

AIADMK government

declared drought in 24 districts, critics dubbed it a move to pre-empt the public backlash in the election season.


Sensing trouble,

chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami

has been repeatedly saying that his government has desilted more than 3,200 water bodies and that efforts are on to construct check dams at a cost of ?1,000cr to save every drop of rainwater. Though the AIADMK boasts of taking up ?36,200cr worth of water supply projects across Tamil Nadu in the last eight years, critics say many remain on paper. Take the case of the desalination plants proposed at Nemmeli (150MLD) and Perur (400MLD) to serve Chennai. Even six years after the late J Jayalalithaa, as chief minister, made the announcement, things have not moved beyond tenders.

Tanker operators say that since January, there has been a spike in booking for water supply across the state — even in Madurai, Tuticorin, Dindigul and Ramanathapuram. And summer has just begun.

Everyone knows that Tamil Nadu is water deficit. The problem is that successive governments have not really planned for the future. So when the rains fail, there is a real crisis.

A total of 548 water supply schemes rely on the Cauvery as the source. Even when there is planning it is not always even-handed. People in Pennagaram and Palacode of Dharmapuri district are livid. They have been left out of the recently launched Vellore water supply scheme, despite being close to river Cauvery in Hogennakkal. “Every politician gives an assurance during polls, but they don’t deliver,” fumes M Kandaiyan of Pennagaram.

Furious residents took to the streets in Attur, Salem, last week demanding water. Walking for kilometres has become the norm to get potable water in certain pockets of the state’s western belt. Saritha Senthil of Kurumbapalayam in Coimbatore says, “Water is supplied once in 10 days and supply lasts for an hour, making it a fight in front of pipes every time.”

The Palar is no more a reliable source of water. Blame it on illegal sand mining or a slew of check dams built by Andhra Pradesh. Or even the polluting tanneries in the Vellore region. District reversal of ecology committee member A Ashokan says successive governments have failed to check the rampant contamination of the river by the tannery and leather industries that discharge untreated effluents, and sewage let out by local bodies.

Untreated sewage and effluents polluting water bodies is a problem across the state. And the main culprits are the local bodies.

Politicians have been facing the heat when they meet people during electioneering. In Karur, Lok Sabha deputy speaker and AIADMK candidate M Thambi Durai faced a volley of questions from villagers of Emoor near Thanthoni last week.

Down south, villages near Mellur in Madurai are under severe stress as supply lasts only for minutes on alternate days. “We barely get a few pots of water. Men bathe in ponds close by. The state could have handled it better, but miserably failed us,” says A Dinesh of Alangampatti. In Usilampatti municipality, private tankers make a killing as the local body supplies water just once in 15 days.

The opposition sounded the warning bell early. DMK leader M K Stalin, in February, demanded that the state release a white paper on the water supply schemes and the desalination plants, as the situation would become grim in summer. However, municipal administration minister S P Velumani assured the assembly that efforts were on to provide uninterrupted supply. The state rolled out major combined water supply schemes in Virudhunagar, Salem, Vellore, Madurai, Coimbatore, and Tirupur, and ten projects in corporations and municipalities.

“We have been supplying 1,750 million litres a day through TWAD, and local bodies do augment the supply through other sources. In Chennai, alternate day supply is maintained as reservoirs become dry. Situation can be managed until summer rains,” claimed a senior government official.

Things are bad particularly in Chennai, where the four reservoirs that are the primary source of water for the metropolis are running dry. Private tankers travel up to Thiruporur, Ponmar, Mambakkam and Chitalapakkam to extract water to meet Chennai’s needs. And often, residents there oppose exploitation of their water.

Public anger is intense as is evident from hoardings in front of apartments in Chennai’s T Nagar: “No water — No vote; we vote for NOTA.”