The acute water scarcity faced by residents of Chennai resonated with the Madras High Court too on Tuesday with the court refusing to entertain a public interest litigation petition for “proper” supply of piped drinking water to residents of Avadi Municipality. The court said such a direction could not be issued when the entire State was reeling under water crisis.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad dismissed the PIL petition filed by N. Babu Ganesh of Avadi after telling his counsel that directions issued by the court should be implementable. When there was absolutely no water, where was the question of the court directing officials to ensure proper supply to one particular locality, they asked. They also recorded the submission of P. Srinivas, counsel for Avadi municipality, that piped drinking water could not be supplied to the residents due to poor storage in the Red Hills reservoir. “Only after water is available, will the supply of drinking water commence through water supply lines laid by the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board,” he said.
Reservoir storage
The court was also told that the water now being supplied to the residents of the municipality through small pumps and water tankers would be gradually scaled down and stopped altogether after water becomes available in the reservoir for piped supply. A counter affidavit to that effect too was filed by Municipality Commissioner M. Jothikumar.
In his affidavit, the petitioner said residents of Avadi, Tirumullaivoyal, Annanur, Hindu College, Pattabiram, Muthaputhpet and Parathipattu were facing difficulties due to non-availability of metro water. He wanted a direction to the officials to ensure proper water supply.
