Life is nothing without water and without life, we are nothing. The fact that resources are scarce invites a cautious use. Perhaps, many have turned a blind eye to globally imminent havoc like this. Chennai Water Crisis is just another eye-opener. Chennai, India’s sixth-largest city, has run dry just a few weeks back. The city, with 3 rivers, 4 humongous water reservoirs, 5 forests and 6 wetlands, had witnessed a catastrophic loss of lives due to lack of water supply through which it would satiate its surplus demands for the past two years. The levity with which water was used indicated the looming disaster – the so-called “Day Zero”.
January 2019, the ominous signs of water running dry didn’t bewilder the state government as the Supreme Court called for “immediate action”. However, the state was busy in its political shenanigans and promulgating the so-called “building boom”. What the state government afforded to do was constricted to the imposition of Water Taxes. They are not only distortionary that creates anxiety among the residents, but also at the time of crisis, fomented aggression against the administration for misallocation of taxes. Mismanagement of public finance and delayed government action resulted in a series of transgressions for water all across the city.
Chennai’s water shortage can be attributed to the sporadic rainfall which earlier used to deliver abundant rainwater. A fairly green city, which used to enjoy copious water supply a decade back, witnessed the deficiency of rainfall after 2017. The 2018 monsoon season was one of the driest ever recorded. The entire state of Tamil Nadu recorded a 23% deficiency in the rainfall. It hasn’t been able to successfully replenish the reservoirs. Moreover, the water table has depleted beyond repair.
Some reporters attribute the water scarcity due to increased urbanization and aggressive land-use patterns. The mushrooming population breaks the chain of resource requirement and imbues afresh demand for the scarce resource. The land use pattern to propitiate the elites for their industrial demands cause the freshwater resources, especially the underground water, to deplete at an exorbitant rate. Consequently, the cascade lies onto the common man and farmers who are compressed beneath the agony of water scarcity. The crisis has emerged into one of the worst nightmares of the state as it is marked by increased frustration amongst the locals. It has disgorged squabbling especially in slums where one such virulent fight turned into a sanguinary one.
The aggrieved is the common man due to improper administration, the dearth of rainfall and urbanization. To mitigate the misery, the government needs to mandate desalination plants to be able to use ocean water for an intense situation like this. The government has been employing an increased number of water tankers to deliver exported water to the societies. Yet, the long term strategy should be preventing the annihilation of natural resources for human profligacy along with the development of alternative methods to quench their thirst without depletion or deprivation because the dawn of today precedes the light of tomorrow.
Destiny with Truth 