Thaneer Thaneer !!!

I am from Singara Chennai and much much before the term global-warming(and drought caused by it) came into vogue Chennai has been having water problems for as long as I remember. Wait..Wait it is not yet another article about global warming and its effects(though that really seems to be the need of the hour). Though water shortage has been a perennial problem throughout India, I have only heard of the issue elsewhere but having experienced it in Chennai time and time again first hand I would like to elaborate on that a little
further.

When I visited my parents recently in Chennai the water situation was shocking to say the least. My parents despite their problems with their respective knees had to stand in a long line almost every other day to fill water in every small vessel they knew existed in the household.Though I was able to help them out when I was there after coming back to the US I could not help but think about their travails day in and day out and about how they were going to manage the water shortage. The wells have completely dried and the water table has been going down partly because of the fact that the temperature has been reaching record highs bettering itself every year and also because every Tom, Dick and Harry has been digging up borewells one after the other.

More I thought about the condition back home more I felt guilty about the amount of water we use(waste might be a better word here) in the US.24/7 water everytime you open your taps. Despite plenty of pleas by the government to cut down water usage(California is reeling under its worst spring in 88 years, with runoff in river basins that feed most reservoirs at 41 percent of average levels. It stops short of a water emergency, which would probably include mandatory rationing). We all would most definitely panic even if there is a water shut down for a day let alone having to manage your entire household with a couple of buckets of water for almost a week as is the case with people in Chennai. I have been trying to use as little water as possible ever since I got back.


It is not as if Chennai has not been getting rains. Infact the annual rainfall in Chennai is in the range of 1200 - 1300 mm. This is higher compared to the India's average rainfall of 800 mm(I got this information from Chennai Metro water). In fact it has already started to rain in Chennai and it is just a question of time before we start talking about water shortage. The problem has been that the water conservation scheme has been horrible. The govt over the years has done absolutely nothing. I was so happy when Jayalalitha announced the rainwater harvesting implementation and she literally forced people to build the simple filter to route the rainwater to wells. I have heard quite a few people thank her for that, if not for the hand-twisting people would not have done anything. Though it was conservation at very small level it was good start.

From there on I was hoping the govt would do much more to store rainwater whenever there is a downpour.As I said rain water harvesting is a good start. Govt needs to start thinking about the following questions and see how best to answer/implement them as soon as possible:

1) How effectively to fill-in many of the local ponds available in and around
Chennai during the rainy season.

2) How can we better clean up our lakes of slush(desiltation as they call it) that accumulates because of wastes thrown in them so that water retention is better?

3) What are the other sources of water that we can tap in e.g: desalination or recycling.

4) Obviously how can we plant more trees given the comstruction mania ?

If we can do something about #1 and #2 we should be able to increase the level of the water table.On top of this we also need to teach young kids the importance of water conservation not so much as to educate them but to encourage them to think about alternative sources of water and how best to use them. I also realize that money seems to be the major factor in many of the schemes not getting implemented but you and I know the amount of money that gets wasted on various other deals.

I am most certainly not an hydrology expert to give pointers but some of these are basic common sense and we have enough brain-power back home to do get the s(hortage + orted + oon). :)

.........Will be bak