The city continues to struggle to return to normality on Wednesday in terms of essential needs like drinking water and vegetables, two days after it was ravaged by cyclone Vardah.
With electricity yet to be restored in several areas such as Ambattur, Anna Nagar West Extension, Thirumangalam, Madipakkam and Kolathur, people waited in long queues to draw water from public fountains.
Residents of Padikuppam, Anna Nagar, said that they did not receive piped water supply for past few days and had to depend on tanker supply or wait in queue to draw water from hand pumps.
S. Raguram, a resident of Venkatapuram, said: “We could not draw groundwater using motors as there was no electricity. Some wedding halls provided water to residents free of cost using generators. Residents had to either pump water from hand pumps or buy two pots of water for Rs.15 from private tankers. Residential areas must be given priority for restoration of electricity.”
Sources in the Chennai Metrowater said sewage pumping stations were operated using generators. “Water is being supplied through tankers where ever piped water supply was disrupted. Electricity supply has been restored now and water distribution stations have started functioning. Residents will get piped water supply from Thursday.”
The four city reservoirs continued to receive inflow for the third day, but it has contributed marginally to the storage, which stood at 1,890 million cubic feet against total capacity of 11,057 mcft. Officials of the Water Resources Department said that inflow from catchment areas and Krishna water since Monday has added storage, enough to supply city for nearly 20 days.
Meanwhile, Metrowater managing director Arun Roy reviewed works to clear sewage blocks in Tondiarpet, functioning of sewage pumping station in Tondiarpet and Adyar area office that was damaged during cyclone on Wednesday.
Another essential supply that took a severe beating was availability of vegetables. Normality is slowly returning in Koyambedu wholesale market that made 50 per cent sales on Wednesday. S. Chandran, president of Koyambedu Wholesale Licensed Vegetable Merchants Association, said: Nearly 60-70 per cent of the produce received on Monday was wasted as the cyclone struck the city.
“We can only stock potatoes in private cold storage facilities for three months. The market got 300 truck loads of vegetables against usual supply of 400 truck loads. Normally, prices would have doubled. But, most vegetables were priced 20 per cent lower as there were no takers. While brinjals were sold for Rs.5 a kg, tomatoes, onions and ladies fingers were sold up to Rs.15 a kg in wholesale market,” he said.
