Updated Date: By keeping it local, we tie in incentives — after all, neighbours will not tolerate insufficiently treated sewage flowing into their tank. “Currently, we are focusing on commercial buildings such as apartments, schools, hospitals and companies. What makes PowerGrid a good bet over the long term? But even in a state like Tamil Nadu, a pioneer in rainwater harvesting, many structures exist on paper only. The countrywide lockdown from March last week impacted both producers and ... And it has every reason to smile. For the middle-class and upper middle-class, the water crisis, coupled with the heat wave, is something that derails family budgets. Using hand toolstools, they dig 30-to-40-foot-deep open wells that strike the shallow aquifer. “We don’t get any water,” she tells this writer, pointing towards the dry pump located near her shanty residence that could easily be called a slum. For all the latest Chennai News, download Indian Express App. “You build out your infrastructure for rainwater harvesting, you recharge the aquifers with treated wastewater, and make sure paving has enough give for rainwater to seep through.”. "Only rain can save Chennai from this situation," an official told BBC Tamil. The water crisis has also meant that most of the city has to depend solely on Chennai's water department, which has been distributing water through government trucks across neighbourhoods. Two Bangalore NGOs, Biome Environmental Trust and Friends of Lakes, have launched a citizens’ initiative to dig a million recharge wells in the city—that’s about one every 90 feet. There is a desperate need to address the mental health crisis in the industry along with a conversation about the lack of economic viability in the arts. “Groundwater in the entire area covering 20 streets has completely dried up. Since in some places the groundwater is now below the level of the river itself, the river has begun to feed the groundwater. A man walks along a water pipe on the bottom of the dried-out Porur Lake in Chennai on Friday, July 5, 2019. Chennai is getting less than two-thirds of the water it normally uses each day. Tomorrow is different. © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, © 2015- Zero discharge is not feasible — even if bulk users treated and reused some part of their sewage, they will need some ‘fresh’ water for drinking and cooking needs (not everyone can go the T-Zed way), and there will be excess treated sewage, over and above, what is reused by the bulk user. ... A few modern solutions that can solve the water crisis in … Copyright © 2020. Aditya Birla Sun Life Tax Relief 96 Direct-Growt.. Why Chennai’s water crisis should worry you. The government will need to facilitate this by helping lay pipelines for the transport of treated sewage to a local tank and by ensuring tertiary treatment at the tank. The duo came up with a water meter that uses remote technology to monitor and measure water consumption and tested a prototype at Wipro. SC order on Shaheen Bagh fails to recognise this, Louise Glück, Nobel winner, for poetry that celebrates the individual, Bhagyashree relies on this DIY face pack for clean and healthy skin; watch video, Google Pixel 4a arrives in India at introductory price of Rs 29,999, CSK batsmen think of the franchise as a government job: Virender Sehwag, AMD announces its Ryzen 5000 Zen 3 desktop processors, Thailand shop installs system to keep doors shut to customers not wearing masks, How a tweet sparked a debate that has Indians on Twitter split over idli and sambar, Outpouring of support for aged couple running 'Baba ka Dhaba' in Delhi after viral video. You can also download our Android App or IOS App. June 21, 2019 Aruna Natarajan. This ties in neatly with what is needed: rejuvenate a local tank, get bulk users to treat their sewage, and feed in the treated sewage after tertiary treatment into the local tank. The government perhaps realising this, repealed the Act in 2013, with one official being quoted as saying, requiring persons having over one HP pump set to register with the proposed Groundwater Authority, would have led to “public outcry.”, A man uses a hand-pump to fill up a container with drinking water as others wait in a queue on a street in Chennai. The poor, who wait in line, giving up sleep and leisure to fill pots of water, have a fine understanding of how much water they use and for what. “What we really need are robust institutions and governance at the river basin level so that we can understand what is happening to land-use change, sand-mining, forest cover, and groundwater extraction—all of which affects river flows.”. And the waters in the tank will help replenish local groundwater levels that will benefit all. On the supply side, it’s important to realise that not all water uses need the same quality of water.