People, companies forced to save water in Chennai

SUMMARY

Receiving most of its annual rainfall during a two-month autumn monsoon season, Chennai routinely experiences droughts and floods. Exacerbated by climate change, the city's booming population has far outpaced its public water supply, forcing individuals and businesses to embrace private solutions.

By APAug 14, 2019 1:15:51 PM IST (Published)

Retired civil servant R Devarajan works on his desk in his three-floor house equipped with rainwater harvesting system in Chennai. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

For Devarajan and Padmini, Chennai's acute water shortage has reinforced the wisdom of their decision years ago to install a rainwater harvesting system in their three-story home. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

For months, their neighbours in Royapettah, a working-class neighbourhood in Chennai, have crowded the streets waiting for the public water delivery trucks to come, often forgoing a day's wages in order not to miss their limited share of five or six jugs per day. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

An elderly woman walks past a puddle as others wait to fill water from a government-run tap in Chennai. Receiving most of its annual rainfall in a two-month-long autumn monsoon, Chennai routinely experiences drought and floods. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Villagers fetch water from a communal well on the outskirts of Chennai. In the village of Pallam just outside Chennai, some 70 families draw lots to determine when they can draw from a communal well. Normally, there is no limit on the water, but now, community leaders have rationed each family to two or three pots per day, supplemented by a weekly visit by a municipal water truck that fills one plastic drum per household. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Exacerbated by climate change, the booming population has far outpaced the city's public water supply, forcing individuals and businesses to embrace private solutions. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)