A few pots of water, three days a week — that’s the supply schedule for residents of MGR Nagar in Madhavaram.
However, there are signs that things will look up soon: One of them is a new water tank that is taking shape.
Their locality is getting a new water tank, which is expected to ensure that these residents are supplied with water on a daily basis.
The civic officials of Zone 3 (Madhavaram) of Greater Chennai Corporation have started work on the project. While the existing tank located near the Amma canteen can hold only five lakh litres of water, the new tank which is coming up near it, will have storage capacity of 12 lakh litres.
“We often walk at least one kilometre to fetch water from public taps in the neighbouring Puzhal area,” says V. Sumathi, a resident of Madhavaram. The existing water tank was built more than a decade ago when the locality was part of Puzhal village panchayat in Tiruvallur district (In 2011, the licslity was merged with the Greater Chennai Corporation).
Most of the residents, who are wage labourers and work at the industrial units at Pattaravakkam and Ambattur, do not have individual water connections. Public water taps and this dilapidated water tank have been the main source of water for them. During summer, the taps on the streets go dry, forcing residents to rely on water tankers.
Located off Grand Northern Trunk (GNT) Road, the locality has around 150 families. The existing water tank gets water once a week, which is supplied to residents thrice a week. Residents are allowed to take two to three pots of water from the tank under the supervision of local civic officials. Most of the residents depend on borewells and individual wells. But increasingly, they say, the wells yield murky water.
Residents also walk to nearby areas like Puzhal, Surapet and Manjambakkam to fetch additional water. The existing concrete water tank is in a bad shape with cracks visible on its concrete pillars. The rank is noticeably leaking at the bottom and from its pipes. A collapse of a portion of the weak water tank can result in causalities, residents point out. At present, children are not being allowed to play near the old water tank.
"Work on the new water tank will be completed in a month as only plastering and painting work are remaining,” says a Corporation official.
