Overcoming the acute shortage of drinking water in Chennai Metro: 520 trucks to be used
Posted on: 01/Mar/2017 12:58:16 PM
The water levels in all the reservoirs and water bodies in and around Chennai are depleting quite rapidly and are almost drying up.
As all the reservoirs supplying metro water have almost dried up, a very acute drinking water shortage is expected to affect Chennai Metro.
The bare fact of the drinking water situation is that one can count on the fingers of one`s hands the number of days water can be supplied through the city water reservoirs.
Besides, Chennai MWSSB (Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board has informed that the groundwater level in the city is also abnormally low.
In this acute scenario, MWSSB has started initiating various measures to overcome the difficulties regarding drinking water supply in the coming days.
Drinking water is being already supplied to the 200 wards under the Chennai Metro Corporation through tanker lorries. With the expected acute shortage, MWSSB has planned to increase the number of tanker lorries.
The MWSSB officials explained:
Currently, drinking water is being supplied to 200 wards under the Chennai Metro Corporation through tanker lorries from 38 areas including Valluvar Kottam, Mathur, K K Nagar, M RC Nagar, Pallippattu, Kolathur, Kannikkuppam, Ekkattuthangal, and Velachery.
Until now, 520 tanker lorries making 4200 trips taking drinking water from the above-mentioned areas to cater to the public. However, as the drinking water shortage has become more acute recently, the number of the tanker lorries trips has been increased to 6500 times from 4200.
Apart from this water pumped from the 300 agricultural land wells in Thiruvallur district is being stored in 10 huge tanks owned by MWSSB and located in the Thiruvallur district. This water is brought to Puzhal reservoir.
This additional supply augments the requirement of drinking water to an extent.
Further, 100 million litres of water from each of the desalination plants located in Nemmeli and Minjur is being supplied to the residents of North and South Chennai.
