south India water crisis
The south Indian water crisis has led major Indian cities like Chennai to face an acute shortage of water. The residents start their morning by daily lining up into the queue to fill their cans and pots from municipal water trucks while some managed to get water through rationed quota daily or in a week. The water crisis has lead people to wash their utensils in dirty water.
The locally affected peoples-
This problem has become a serious issue in schools, hospitals, and businesses. The women coming for deliveries or people who need to be operated are affected greatly. Small hospitals are not been given great importance in such a crisis leading to hundreds of lives in danger. There is no other option left other than the city to be shut down. This trouble has caused a great impact on farmers because of the destruction of crops which has worsened their situation. The restaurants have been shut down for weeks and the owners are baring huge losses for it and employers of corporate office have been given instructions to work from home.
Role of government as helping hands-
The government is trying to provide a steady water supply for the people battling with this crisis in the sixth-largest city of the country. The heatwaves and scarcity of water have till now cause the death of approx 137 people. The government is not ready to take blames of their poor mismanagement and unsupervised groundwater extraction in the few past years which has to worsen the situations. The Tamil Nadu state government has dismissed the accusations of the water crisis in all the districts and water not being able to reach everyone. According to the state government, they are trying hard to raise their helping hands in every district and has accepted help from many other countries to solve the issue. They have deployed 900 water trucks for help in the city of 10 million people. Recently Kerela has offered 2 million liters of water every day through rail which would minimize the crisis a little. Chennai needs approx 820 million liters of water every day and the government can meet only 40 percent of the requirement.
Meteorological reports-
There has been no rain from the past 200 days which makes it the worst water crisis in the past 30 years. There has been 62 percent of overall fall in the monsoon from last year. Meteorologists are expecting rain in the coming week which has given hopes to people whose taps are running dry, but it would not be enough to fill the water bodies. The cost of hiring water trucks are not affordable for middle-class families.