4. How much treated water does a family get in Chennai? — The Reality

The Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) formed in 1978 has the responsibility for planning, construction, operation and maintenance of all water supply and sewerage systems in the city and certain defined industries outside the city, but within the Chennai Metropolitan area (CMA). For other areas within the CMA but outside the city, the responsibility for planning and construction rests with the Tamilnadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD) and the responsibility for their operation and maintenance rests with the local municipality. Of the four metropolitan cities viz., New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai, only the capital city is able to supply the requisite quantity of treated water to the citizens. Mumbai falls a little short, whereas in Calcutta and Chennai, the supply is woefully inadequate, with the CMWSSB itself admitting to a supply of only 78 ltrs per capita, which is the smallest quantity supplied in any metropolitan town or city in India. Even this is not uniformly available in all parts of the city, some getting substantially more and some substantially less. Whenever any application for the construction of an apartment complex is presented to the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), it informs the CMWSSB of the same and seeks its clearance prior to processing the application. Therefore every permit cleared by the CMDA is cleared by the CMWSSB as well. While this clearance is meant to assure a minimum supply of water to the concerned complex to meet its cooking and drinking needs, in actual practice, it may turn out that even this minimum quantity may not flow in to the sump, or the supply may be erratic depending on the local conditions. The mode of availability of this minimum quantity could be any of the following (at the option of the CMWSSB):- Water flows from the road main into the underground sump in the complex, under the influence of the pressure in the road main. Water needs to be pumped by a hand-pump installed on the line from the road main to the sump, the pumping being effective only during the hours when CMWSSB pumps water through the road main in that area. No connection is provided to the sump from the road main. A tap connection is provided or a hand pump is permitted on a branch of the road main, brought inside the premises. The inflow of metro water through any of the three modes given above is dependent not on the mode of connection per se but on the specific factors in the vicinity of the complex involved such as pumping pressure, proximity to the pumping station, the state of the pipelines etc. This situation is compounded by the fact that to date CMWSSB has declined to give more than one connection to any apartment complex, irrespective of the number of residential units it comprises. Consequent to the inherent uncertainty in both the quantum and manner of supply by the CMWSSB, one is forced to look at water availability from alternate sources. The obvious alternative source is no doubt the sub-surface or ground water within the complex itself.