When the water changed colour

October 11, 2016 11:42 am | Updated November 01, 2016 05:20 pm IST

Last week, the Metrowater supply in Habibullah Road was contaminated with sewage. This problem is not new to the residents of this area.

A bucket of water drawn from a sump in an apartment complex on Habibullah Road. Photo: R. Ragu

A bucket of water drawn from a sump in an apartment complex on Habibullah Road. Photo: R. Ragu

“Generally, we realise the water is contaminated by the smell and turn off the motor to stop this supply. But this time, we knew the water was contaminated by just looking at it. Its colour has changed,” said N.M. Karthikeyan, a resident of Habibullah Road.

Residents of Habibullah Road said that last week they were unable to use water supplied by Metrowater as it was found mixed with sewage.

Contamination of Mertrowater supply with sewage is said to be a recurrent issue on this road. Residents said that for the last two years, this problem had been keeping cropping up.

“Many a time, during a month, we end up spending on cleaning the sumps and overhead tanks,” said Shiva Prasad. Y, another resident of the area.

When this problem manifested again, a few days ago, with the water supplied by Metrowater changing colour, many residents of the neighbourhood were not aware it.

For, they had stopped availing Metrowater long ago, and now depend entirely on borewell water.

S. Sridharudu, a resident, says “It has been three years since I stopped using Metrowater. We were buying mineral water cans and we found that in the long run this would prove to be too costly as we required 30 cans per month. We were using it for cooking too. Later, we installed a reverse osmosis unit.”

Residents said sewage lines seemed unable to take present day’s load

“There are now around 200 apartment complexes in the neighbourhood. The ducts don’t seem to have the capacity anymore to carry the current sewage outputs,” adds Sridharudu. Resident A Valarmathy said that a complaint (No: 16100 20090) had been registered with Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board on Sunday.

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