At a time when Tamil Nadu is experiencing a heat wave and water crisis at the same time, people have been forced to use water sparingly. However, chief minister of the state Palaniswami is of the belief that the ground reality is nothing but media exaggeration
Chennai: Tamil Nadu is reeling under severe water crisis in the recent past. Although reports have come about the abysmal ways people are leading their lives in order to save whatever little water is left, but state chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has chosen to look the other way.
Palaniswami has indicated that the news about water scarcity in the state is nothing but exaggeration of the media.
Palaniswami was visiting former chief minister late J Jayalalithaa’s memorial when he addressed reporters. “If there is a water shortage in one place, the media friends blow it up as a big thing. I request you all to not blow it up and show as if the entire Tamil Nadu is reeling under water crisis.”
He further went on to say that the government was taking steps to tackle the shortage of water, wherever there was really a problem.
Palaniswami blamed the failure of monsoon for the depletion of groundwater levels. He also mentioned that the minister for municipal administration had conducted a meeting with relevant officials regarding the water situation and the government is taking steps accordingly.
He also mentioned that the ‘Amma’s government’ was continuously supplying water through lorries of Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board.
“Wherever there is drinking water scarcity in Tamil Nadu, water is being supplied to those places through lorries,” he said.
However people using this water for all other purposes as well, like bathing and washing clothes only leads to water shortage, Palaniswami added.
“Our Monsoon starts only in October-November and we have to manage water till then. Keeping that in mind, we are supplying water to people. We are also supplying water to people from desalination plants. Hence people have to cooperate with us,” he said.
He is not the only one to think on these lines. Municipal administration minister SP Velumani had earlier said that the news about water scarcity is ‘manufactured’.
He even went one step further in denying that IT companies in the city were instructing their employees to work from home due to non-availability of water and also hotels were forced to remain shut due to water shortage.
Velumani said that these problems are being manufactured by some people and that he didn’t want to get into the politics of it.
Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.