For at least three months, the majority of the residents of the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board’s tenements at Perumbakkam near Chennai have lived in a constant state of worry because of an irregular and inadequate water supply.
Perumbakkam is TNUHDB’s largest resettlement site, where people evicted from different places across the city have been relocated. With a significant number of families relocated in recent years, the total number of families living in the multi-storey tenements at Perumbakkam and nearby Semmencheri stands at a little more than 27,000. Despite the increase in their number, the residents allege that nothing has been done to ensure adequate water supply to all. The majority of the relatively new apartment buildings, each consisting of 96 housing units, are receiving supply only once in four days for around 1.5 hours, the residents say. In the area where the old multi-storey buildings are, the supply is now made for one-and-a-half hours once in two days.
Children severely affected
Kalyani (name changed), who was resettled at Perumbakkam in 2017 in one of the relatively new buildings, says she has temporarily moved her school-going daughter to her mother’s house in the city because of the water problem. “My daughter is not able to use the bathroom as and when needed as there is no water. She had to go to school for many days without a shower...,” she said. Many others do not have the option of moving their children to their parents’ or relatives’. “I have a boy in Class 12 and a girl in Class 7. Most days, they are going to school without a shower. But how can they go without using the toilets,” asked another mother.
Pointing out that her family had used a public toilet when they were living in the city, she says the availability of toilets for every household was the selling point when officials persuaded the families to relocate. “We are unable to use the toilets in our houses, neither do we have access to public toilets,” she says.
The residents also complain about the quality of water being supplied. Of late, the water is often turbid, unfit for drinking or cooking. “Many families have switched to buying water cans for cooking and drinking... Now, some of the children are getting rashes, most likely due to water quality,” a resident says.
According to residents who live in one of the older buildings, the issue of sewage getting mixed with the water is recurrent. It happened twice last month. When it happens, it takes a few days to fix the problem and water supply is stopped until then, they say. With more complaints about inadequate supply from the residents of the newer buildings, the Board has been supplying to the older buildings once in two days, as against daily, to divert water to the newer buildings.
Irregular timings
Another key issue is the water supply timings. The residents say that if an apartment block is supplied in the morning once, it gets water only in the afternoon in its next turn. With the majority of the men and women going out for work in the morning and return home late in the evening, filling up buckets and pots when water is supplied proves to be difficult.
Mohana, a resident, says the families have to rely on neighbours who stay at home to collect the water. “However, for them, filling up water in their own households will be the priority. By the time they come to help the neighbours, the supply is stopped.”
The inadequate supply has led to conflicts and quarrels among themselves, the residents allege. Water is supplied to the houses after being pumped to the tanks, of 500-litre capacity each, kept on the terrace of each building. Each tank supplies to two houses on different floors. Owing to variation in pressure, the houses on the upper floors often get less water, leading to conflicts, the residents say.
Moreover, TNUHDB last year launched Nam Kudiyiruppu Nam Poruppu, a scheme to encourage formation of Residents Welfare Associations (RWAs) in all apartment buildings. The RWAs were tasked with collecting maintenance charges and carrying out minor maintenance work.
In the multi-storey buildings at Perumbakkam, every house has to pay ₹750 a month in maintenance charges. “Since we are the ones collecting the money, we have become the villains when the water supply is inadequate,” says Kalyani, who is also an elected office-bearer of an RWA. The residents several times petitioned officials at the TNUHDB office at Perumbakkam and also met the TNUHDB Managing Director last month to highlight the issue. When contacted, a senior official of the Board acknowledged problems in the supply to some buildings.
He said the only source was the water supplied by the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) from its desalination plant at Nemmeli. While the present assured supply of eight million litres a day (mld) was insufficient to meet the daily demands of the residents, the supply realised was only around six to seven mld. He said several issues in the pipelines maintained by TNUHDB had been fixed to ensure that all the water received from CMWSSB was supplied to the houses without leakage. To further increase the capacity, ₹8.65 crore was allocated for construction of additional sumps.
Sources in CMWSSB said it was decided to double the drinking water supply to 16 mld, following a demand from TNUHDB. Officials said bids were called to lay a 400-mm pipeline to a distance of 3.5 km from the desalination plant. They said the ₹8.17-crore project, funded by TNUHDB, would facilitate additional drinking water supply. Work would likely start by mid-November and be completed in three or four months, they said.
(With inputs from K. Lakshmi.)
