Water, all the time: Chennai moves to fix piped supply

Key Highlights

• JOTHI RAMALINGAM For Chennai, long accustomed to counting water supply by the hour and anxious over summer scarcity, water stress is a subject of both concern and dark humour.
• The city’s experiment with a 24-hour uninterrupted and equitable piped water supply — aided by a ring main distribution system, a looped pipeline network linking all sources — signals a move away from intermittent distribution and short-term water management.
• Chennai is sustained by its water sumps.
• This perpetuates the myth that piped supply is continuous, when in reality it is not.
• Even the key areas get only intermittent supply, which makes the Adyar zone trial a key experiment that may change the city’s water distribution strategy.