Metro Water shrugs off responsibility

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai, on June 10, 2010:

CHENNAI: All accusations by Chennai Corporation's elected representatives on Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) for failing to provide quality drinking water sans sewage mix to city residents was met with silence, on Wednesday. The Metro Water officials preferred to say, "We will discuss all the concerns raised here with our officials."
The joint meeting between Chennai Corporation and Metro Water was organised after deputy chief minister M K Stalin requested for better coordination between them. This came after a spurt of diarrhoea cases and admissions at the Communicable Diseases Hospital (CDH) and also the increasing complaints of sewage mix across the city.

The meeting was expected to be stormy but it ended inconclusive as the Metro Water's officials refused to admit any lapse on their part.
Through the meeting the civic body's elected representatives wanted to clear the corporation's name for being blamed for the water problems when the Metro Water was the sole authority to supply quality drinking water to the city.
Besides the civic body's top officials, the meeting was attended by the Municipal Administration and Water Supply (MAWS) secretary Niranjan Mardi, Metro Water managing director Shiv Das Meena, chairmen of corporation's 10 zones and all party leaders.
Speaking to Express after the meeting, Saidai P Ravi, opposition floor leader (Congress) in the corporation, said, "I raised issues like poor maintenance of Metro Water's pumping stations, delayed response to complaints on sewage mixing and poor supply of drinking water but there was no concrete reply from the metro department."