Govt appoints consultant to solve Chennai's water problem

The Tamil Nadu government has appointed a consultant to identify a suitable water source within the state to augment drinking water supply by 15 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet), accor-ding to deputy chief minister MK Stalin.

Speaking at ‘Chennai 2020’, a one-day seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, Stalin said, “the government is determined in its efforts to make Chennai drought-proof and to ensure 24x7 supply of water.”

He added that the state government's consultant is tasked with providing a solution to the expected demand for water over the next 15 to 20 years.

“Supply-demand gap in drinking water supply is increasing steadily and the current demand of around 700 million litres per day is met through identified sources,” he said.

He said the Tamil Nadu government would make Chennai a global city with metro rail, construction of bridges and parks. The metro rail project, covering a distance of 45 km would be completed by 2015. Efforts were on to establish a financial city, a sports city and a media city, he said.