Feb 19, 2006 :: The water pay-off in Chennai
Chennai is a metro city that does not sit on a river like Delhi does. Yet, while every summer brings water shortages to Delhi, Chennai seems to be headed for self-sufficiency. How? A combination of civic activism, political will, investments in sustainable technical solutions and diligent collection of user fees have together made the city comfortable. Over five years ago a government fiat required every building in the state to be rigged for harvesting rain. And that is now paying off. Sight of water being trucked into the city from well-fields in the suburbs was missing last summer. In turn, those huge wells have been recharged and reverted to comfortable levels of ten years ago.