The Hindu : Summer of discontent

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 11, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Summer of discontent

As the mercury rises in Chennai, so do tempers of its residents, writes Karthik Subramanian.

The scramble for water in a Chennai suburb.

BLEARY-EYED THEY scramble out of bed at 4 a.m. to strain at the hand-pump for a little water. That is just the beginning. Fights over the fare with autorickshaw drivers, perilous rides on roads that have been dug up overnight and encounters with surly bus conductors follow. A typical day in the life of many of Chennai's residents.

Life in the `conservative' capital of Tamil Nadu is no longer laid-back. Breaking the fast with a quiet cup of filter coffee belongs to a bygone era. As the metropolis expands, bursting with a population of six million-plus, the residents are struggling to put up with patchy infrastructure. And as the mercury rises, so do tempers.

Chennai is often termed a flawed metropolis due to the lack of a perennial river as its source of water. While the World Health Organisation standard for a `healthy' lifestyle pegs a per capita supply of 140 litres per person a day, all that Chennai residents get is something between 20 and 50 litres, which must often be collected at night or at the crack of dawn.

For the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board vested with the task of uniformly distributing water through its pipelines, the months from April to September are testing times. It is a time of public protests, road rokos, the anger fanned by profiteering water tanker operators.

For the office-going middle class, the prohibitive cost of packaged water means dependence on water through the pipelines. It is a common sight to find long queues at most of the water filling stations even late into the night. During one of the worst drought years that the city had seen, 2001, even friendly middle class neighbours turned enemies as they chased the few water tankers brought from Neyveli, 300 km away. Fisticuffs were regular occurrences in front of some of the water stations, and at least 30 residents were run over by water tankers racing through the city. Naturally, the public vented its anger by demonstrations, both for water and against tanker drivers.

This year too, Chennai is bracing itself for a drought with the storage in reservoirs dwindling fast. This time around, residents' welfare associations have started questioning the need to pay water tax when it is in fact not available in the pipeline for several years together. More than 3,000 residents of Konnur High Road in Ayanavaram belong to this category of people, who have been denied piped water supply for six and half years now. The residents are losing their patience and even speak of civil disobedience by refusing to pay water tax.

Water and road traffic are twin problems in the metro. With more than 18 lakh registered vehicles on its roads and over 5,000 accidents every year, Chennai is no stranger to road rage. Incessant honking, verbal clashes and, in some instances, fisticuffs are part of Chennai's road culture. Arguments with policemen are even more common. Though there are 1,800 km of roads, only 1000 km are regularly used. Even this is inadequate, as the quality is poor, devastated by each monsoon, leading to angry citizens' protests.

Adding to the stress of its residents is the city's notorious fleet of autorickshaws that run by their own rules, charging even Rs.150 for a few kilometres. Meters are invariably "out of service" or `fixed'. Thus, when the "Call Taxis" made their appearance, the concept was embraced by the residents.

"Higher tax concessions for personal transport and availability of personal loans have seen a massive surge in this sector. On the other hand, the public transport scene has been static for long," explains K.P. Subramanian, professor of the Division of Urban Systems, Anna University.

Part of the stress of living in the metro comes from finding a parking lot, and if one is found, it is aggravated by a confrontation with parking attendants who demand exorbitant charges. The Government has been hard selling Chennai as the Detroit of Asia, but ironically, it has new car plants but not new parking lots.

The city's vital statistics are a pointer to the nature of the problem — the population, including some of the suburban areas, has grown to 6.42 million as per the latest census. The growth between 1991 and 2001 was by 9.76 per cent. With too many people chasing too few resources, the city is like a pressure cooker. Worse, it can blow anytime.

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