Residents of Chitlapakkam Muthulakshmi Nagar Welfare Association, have urged officials to ensure that the Madambakkam-Chitlapakkam water scheme, is carried out on a war-footing basis and completed before summer.
Speaking to News Today, the association’s president, L Sundararaman, said, “We has been demanding for inclusion of Chitlapakkam in the Pallavaram-Pammal Metro water scheme for the past six years. Though assurance was given, nothing concrete has happened and we keep suffering due to water scarcity. The heavy floods in 2015 resulted in water entering the houses, and at the same time the wells and ponds were filled to their brim. Last year, the monsoon failed, leaving almost all the water bodies dry.”
Sundararaman stated that residents were relieved when the Madambakkam-Chitlapakkam scheme was announced a few years ago.
“But much to our disappointment, the work has not been completed yet. In the past two years, wells have dried up in March-April, with the Town Panchayat supplying water through tanker lorries, based on the request of residents. This time, due to monsoon failure, most of the wells have already become dry in the last week of January and there is nothing in borewells too,” he added.
According to him, in the present scenario, the completion of the said project is the only hope for residents to survive the summer. “In the meantime, we request the Chitlapakkam Town Panchayat to kindly arrange the supply of drinking water through tanker lorries from the last week of February,” he appealed.
On the other hand, residents of Madambakkam are up and against the scheme, as they are worried that it might deplete the water source in their locality. A team of residents even filed a PIL in the court against the project.