Page 13 - AW SEPOCT 2019

WORLD NEWS

a reluctance to invest in expansion because of the where upscale hotels with swimming pools, shopping
uncertainty about future water supplies. malls with fountains, high-end apartment buildings and
Companies are paying 30% more for private supplies restaurants purchase their water from private sources.
sourced from farther outside Chennai and delivered Chennai’s Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage
by water tankers, which require dedicated workers to Board is delivering about 500 million liters (132 million
manage. Others have set up their own water-recycling gallons) of water per day — less than half of the city’s
systems, said chamber Secretary-General K. Saraswathi. needs. It’s supplementing its supplies with water brought
Receiving about 80% of its annual rainfall in two months, by rail from a dam hundreds of kilometers (miles) away. It
October and November, Chennai is naturally prone to is also planning a third desalination plant.
droughts and floods, exacerbated in recent years by To be sure, the problem isn’t limited to Chennai. The
climate change. But some of the disaster is man-made. National Institution for Transforming India, a government
Chennai’s population has more than tripled in three think tank, said in a report last year that India was
decades. And like many cities across India, in a drive to undergoing the worst water crisis in its history. “Critical
develop, the Chennai Municipal Corporation has changed groundwater resources — which account for 40% of our
zoning to permit building over filled-in ponds and canals water supply — are being depleted at unsustainable
and on flood plains, which means the monsoon season’s rates,” it said.
copious rainfall isn’t absorbed to recharge groundwater More than 600 million people are facing “acute” water
supplies. shortages, and 21 Indian cities, including Chennai, are
Evidence of growth and development is everywhere expected to run out of groundwater by 2020.
in Chennai. A brand new apartment complex in the With the London-based consultancy Oxford Economics
western outskirts called Golden Opulence hung a predicting all of the world’s 10-fastest growing cities in
banner advertising big capital letters: “Drinking water in India, the implications globally could be significant.
abundance, absolutely free!” Nearby, Ford and Hyundai The water crisis “raises the question of whether the
factories assemble cars and IT companies including infrastructure will be in place to support the growth. If not,
Foxconn, the Taiwanese purveyor of the iPhone, build then the consequence would probably be much slower
gadgets for India’s growing electronics export business. growth,” said Richard Holt, the consultancy’s head of
Water also flows more freely in richer south Chennai, global cities research. AW

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