Rapid growth has left India's sixth-largest city parched. The water board in Chennai has had to resort to drastic measures - shipping water four hours by train to the city of 10 million people.
In this Wednesday, July 17, 2019, photo, workers fill wagons of a train with drinking water piped in from the Mettur dam on the Cauvery River, at Jolarpet railway station, 216 kilometers from Chennai in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
The train is classic Indian “jugaad,” the Hindi word for a makeshift solution to a complicated problem. Chennai’s population has more than tripled in three decades, with people arriving to take jobs at pharmaceutical research and development labs, auto plants and high-tech industries. The runaway growth — combined with poor maintenance of its four reservoirs, ineffective sewage systems and, more recently, delayed monsoon rains — has left India’s sixth-largest city high and dry. Or nearly so.
The amount of water transported is just a tiny fraction of the 500 million liters a day that the water board delivers to its customers. “People get excited once they see our lorries,” said Ranganathan, who goes by only one name. “On days if it becomes late, people will start panicking. What to do? They are like my mother, sister who are worried due to water scarcity, so we help.”
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