Private water tankers have gone off the roads, demanding regularisation in tapping groundwater. About 1,000 loads of water are supplied in the city and supply has been suspended since Monday night.

Mr P.S. Sundaram, president of Chennai Private Water Tanker Lorries Association, told this newspaper that the strike will gain momentum. Around 500 lorries plying in suburban areas like Red Hills, Poonamallee, Manali and Maduravoyil have already joined the strike and lorries operating from other parts of Chennai have extended support, he said.

Already hotels, hospitals and malls are facing water shortage as they have been dependant on private tankers. Mr Sundaram added that tanker operators were spending sleepless nights due to frequent raids by revenue authorities.

“When liquor business can be regulated and run in a smooth manner why not drinking water? The government should help private water tankers and new regulations should be set up. We should be allowed to take water from certified bore-wells so that over-exploitation can be prevented,” said Mr S. Saravanan, a private water supplier in Tambaram.

“In our association last year we decided to buy water from private tankers as getting the Metro Water tanker supply was tedious. On Tuesday the water supplier informed us about the strike and the apartments in our colony are running out of water,” said Mr K. Narayanan, a resident of Konrajkuppam in Ambattur.

According to Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board sources, Metro Water covers close to 200 square kilometre of the recently-expanded Chennai and reaches a population of around 60 lakh.
While the strike will not affect households, private buildings, marriage halls and commercial establishments rely on private tankers for additional water.

No law yet to rein in illegal water tappers

Seizure of three water tankers used for illegal groundwater tapping in Chennai on Monday would do little in stopping private water mafia’s free run. For, there is no exclusive law in force in Tamil Nadu to crackdown on water mafia illegally exploiting groundwater resources.

Currently, the state WRD (water resource department), the nodal agency involved in monitoring and recharge of groundwater resources in TN, only remains a mute spectator. Only the Central Groundwater Board (CGB) office here has the legal teeth to crackdown on water mafia as the State Groundwater Act has not seen the light of the day for over seven years now.

The Act, if enforced, would empower WRD to curb the menace of groundwater exploitation. Also, digging and pumping of water from every borewell across the state would be brought under the purview of state WRD as per the Act. Currently, the state lacks a proper mechanism to monitor granting of permission and tapping of groundwater using borewells.

The Act, conceived in the 2001-06 AIADMK regime, made little progress though it was deliberated during the Cabinet meetings during the previous DMK regime owing to differences between the minister and bureaucrats over choosing the chairman of the state groundwater authority.

While officials proposed to make the state PWD secretary as the authority chairman, the policy makers proposed the minister concerned. While the differences delay the Act seeing the light of the day, the water mafia continues to outfox an understaffed CGB to gain backdoor entry for commercial exploitation of the state groundwater resources, said senior WRD officials.