8/18/2019 Indians Hunt Through the Night for Water as a Megacity Runs Dry - WSJ

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The southern city of Chennai—India’s fifth largest with a population of around 10 million—hasbeen meeting only two-thirds of its water needs for weeks, the product of years of drought anddecades of failure to manage the region’s water resources.

Residents have been scrambling around the clock to get water—spending hours chasinggovernment tankers or paying private companies to deliver water.

Recent light rains broke a 200-day streak without rain. But the first month of India’s annualmonsoon brought one-third less rain than the 50-year average, the driest June in five years,according to the India Meteorological Department.

The acute water shortage in one of India’s largest cities has been building for decades through amix of population growth, poor planning and increasingly erratic monsoon rains.

“The current water crisis in Chennai was predicted years ago, and there has been relativelylittle effort made to prepare for it,” says Mervyn Piesse, manager of global food and water crisesresearch program at Future Directions International, a research institute based in Nedlands,Australia.

The situation in Chennai reflects a larger water crisis spreading across India. Half the country’spopulation—600 million people—live in areas where water resources are highly or extremelystressed. About 100 million people living in 21 of India’s biggest cities may see theirgroundwater exhausted by the end of next year, according to a 2018 study by NITI Aayog, anIndian government policy think tank.

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INDIA

Indians Hunt Through the Night for Water asa Megacity Runs DryPopulation growth, poor planning and increasingly erratic monsoon rains leave public water supplymore than one-third short of what is needed

July 6, 2019 8�00 am ET

By Vibhuti Agarwal and Krishna Pokharel

8/18/2019 Indians Hunt Through the Night for Water as a Megacity Runs Dry - WSJ

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By 2030, demand for water will be double the country’s supply, the report said. And the impactwill go far beyond the areas actually affected by water shortages: Almost one-third of thecountry’s agricultural output comes from areas most affected by water shortages.

“Water scarcity affects many parts of the country every year,” Prime Minister Narendra Modisaid in a radio address to the country Sunday. “Now the time has come to find a solution to thisproblem.”

The situation in Chennai underscores the challenges.

S. Lalitha, a 36-year-old resident who earns 12,000 rupees ($174) each month working as ahousemaid, said she spent the whole night several times recently waiting and searching for

Chennai residents fetch water from a water pump that is already jerry-rigged with myriad pump pipes. PHOTO: ATULLOKE�GETTY IMAGES

8/18/2019 Indians Hunt Through the Night for Water as a Megacity Runs Dry - WSJ

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government water trucks, the only free water available to her for her family.

“Running after water took up all my time. They come around 3 or 4 in the morning. We have torun after them to fill our buckets before the supplies dry up. Sometimes, it can take two to threedays for the trucks to turn up,” she said.

Thescarcity hasled toclashesbetweenneighbors.“Noone isreadyto

share even a glass of water,” she said.

After having to skip work for lack of sleep, she finally decided to pay a private company 9,000rupees a month for deliveries during the day.

“I’m spending almost my entire salary just to get water. Is this fair?” she said.

S. Raveendhran, a 27-year-old software engineer at a technology company in Chennai, said hehas been asked by his hostel owner to vacate the room he rents at the end of next month. Thehostel is being closed because it doesn’t have enough water to meet the daily needs of thepeople staying there, he said.

“I try to reach office early to take a shower there and wash my clothes on alternate days,” hesaid.

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A shepherd grazes sheep in the dry Puzhal reservoir on the outskirts of Chennai. PHOTO: ATUL LOKE�GETTY IMAGES

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But Mr. Raveendhran said his company has now asked him to work from home to conservethe company’s water. “I’ve already started looking for a job in a new city,” he said.

Mohammad Alam, a worker at Hotel Sangeetha, said they were serving food on banana leavesinstead of steel plates. “We have to ration water. It’s better than shutting down,” the 21-year-old said.

The Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, also known as Chennai MetroWater—the local body that provides drinking water—supplies 525 million liters a day, out of thecity’s total requirement of 830 million liters a day, said T.N. Hariharan, the board’s managingdirector.

Chennai gets most of its water from four reservoirs, two of which are completely dry while theremaining two are almost dry.

Water experts say major Indian cities such as the capital New Delhi, the tech hubs of Bangaloreand Hyderabad, and smaller cities like Shimla and Mangalore are also facing unprecedentedwater-scarcity challenges. They join major urban centers such as São Paulo, Brazil, and CapeTown, South Africa, that have experienced acute water shortages in recent years.

“If the cities do not take action urgently, it’s just a matter of time for such water-scarce cities tobe in a Chennai or Cape Town-like ‘Day Zero’ situation,” said Samrat Basak, director for urbanwater issues at the India office of the World Resources Institute, an environmental-researchorganization in Washington.

Day Zero refers to when a city’s water utilities stop their regular supply to household taps anduse water tankers to distribute daily rations.

Indian residents line up for water from a distribution tanker in the outskirts of Chennai. PHOTO: ARUN SANKAR�AGENCEFRANCE�PRESSE�GETTY IMAGES

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India’s federal government recently created a new Ministry of Water, merging two water-related ministries. “This will allow faster decision-making on all subjects related to water,”Prime Minister Modi said in his radio address.

Mr. Modi said he has also written a letter to elected village heads across the country urgingthem to take steps to conserve water. “Just like the cleanliness drive has been given the shapeof a mass movement by the countrymen, let’s also start a mass movement for waterconservation,” Mr. Modi said.

“India is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history, and millions of lives and livelihoodsare under threat,” the NITI Aayog-commissioned report said. “The crisis is only going to getworse.”

Write to Vibhuti Agarwal at vibhuti.agarwal@wsj.com and Krishna Pokharel atkrishna.pokharel@wsj.com

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