Residents arrange plastic pots filled with drinking water in an auto rickshaw at a distribution point in Chennai, India. Photograph: Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images

Chennai in crisis, authorities blamed the extreme water shortage

Chennai have to deal with an extreme water shortage that has brought the Indian city to crisis point which forces schools, offices and restaurant to be closed. The situation then leads to critics to the authorities as the temperatures soar.

Dozens of death has been reported caused by the extreme heatwave in India’s sixth largest city. The temperature near the airport in Delhi reached 48C and 50c in Rajasthan last week. Furthermore, four suppliers of the city’s drinking water have dried up.

The Madras’s high court has criticized the Tamil Nadu state government and accused the government on Tuesday of passively waiting for monsoon to arrive instead of handling the water crisis which clearly will take a long period of time.
Entire families in Chennai are managing their daily needs with two or three pots of water. They have to wait for private water tankers to provide them drinking water with nothing left for laundry or bathing. The women will rush over carrying colourful plastic pots to fill up the water.

Based on a report released on 14 June, NITI Aayog said that India was facing the worst water crisis in the history. At least 21 cities would run out of groundwater and recommended an urgent and improved management of water resources by 2020.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/19/chennai-in-crisis-water-shortage-with-authorities-blamed-india