Page 12 - AW SEPOCT 2019

WORLD NEWS

Chennai’s rapid growth threatened by

water shortages

ozens of billion-dollar companies. Thousands of high- have suddenly run dry.
Dpaying IT and manufacturing jobs. Luxury apartments The water shortfall is disrupting business at all levels,
towering over the Bay of Bengal. The southern Indian city of from the gleaming, 45-kilometer (28-mile) IT Corridor to
Chennai has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, the neighborhood tea shop. Some workers have been
but it’s out of water, threatening to put a brake on all that asked not to report to the office while others have had to
growth. give up a day’s wages to wait for the erratic water truck
In Chennai, a coastal city of about 10 million and that makes daily deliveries.
the capital of Tamil Nadu state, rapid development and The Madras Chamber of Commerce, named for what
rampant construction have overtaxed a once-abundant British colonialists called the city, said that results from a
natural water supply, forcing the government to spend survey sent to its 700 members in May found that most
huge sums to desalinate sea water, bring water by train industries in the city’s diversified economy have been
from hundreds of kilometers (miles) away and deploy an affected by the crisis, which has caused disruptions
army of water trucks to people whose household taps in production schedules, higher operation costs and

10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 Asian Water