Drinking water remains a major issue for Perumbakkam residents

Drinking water remains a major issue for Perumbakkam residents

For at least three months, the majority of the residents of the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board’s tenements at Perumbakkam near Chennai have lived in a constant state of worry because of an irregular and inadequate water supply.

Perumbakkam is TNUHDB’s largest resettlement site, where people evicted from different places across the city have been relocated. With a significant number of families relocated in recent years, the total number of families living in the multi-storey tenements at Perumbakkam and nearby Semmencheri stands at a little more than 27,000. Despite the increase in their number, the residents allege that nothing has been done to ensure adequate water supply to all. The majority of the relatively new apartment buildings, each consisting of 96 housing units, are receiving supply only once in four days for around 1.5 hours, the residents say. In the area where the old multi-storey buildings are, the supply is now made for one-and-a-half hours once in two days.

Kalyani (name changed), who was resettled at Perumbakkam in 2017 in one of the relatively new buildings, says she has temporarily moved her school-going daughter to her mother’s house in the city because of the water problem. “My daughter is not able to use the bathroom as and when needed as there is no water. She had to go to school for many days without a shower...,” she said. Many others do not have the option of moving their children to their parents’ or relatives’. “I have a boy in Class 12 and a girl in Class 7. Most days, they are going to school without a shower. But how can they go without using the toilets,” asked another mother.

Pointing out that her family had used a public toilet when they were living in the city, she says the availability of toilets for every household was the selling point when officials persuaded the families to relocate. “We are unable to use the toilets in our houses, neither do we have access to public toilets,” she says.

The residents also complain about the quality of water being supplied. Of late, the water is often turbid, unfit for drinking or cooking. “Many families have switched to buying water cans for cooking and drinking... Now, some of the children are getting rashes, most likely due to water quality,” a resident says.

According to residents who live in one of the older buildings, the issue of sewage getting mixed with the water is recurrent. It happened twice last month. When it happens, it takes a few days to fix the problem and water supply is stopped until then, they say. With more complaints about inadequate supply from the residents of the newer buildings, the Board has been supplying to the older buildings once in two days, as against daily, to divert water to the newer buildings.

Another key issue is the water supply timings. The residents say that if an apartment block is supplied in the morning once, it gets water only in the afternoon in its next turn. With the majority of the men and women going out for work in the morning and return home late in the evening, filling up buckets and pots when water is supplied proves to be difficult.