Residents of Chitlapakkam Muthulakshmi Nagar Welfare Association have urged the officials to ensure that the Madambakkam-Chitlapakkam water scheme is carried out on a war-footing and completed before summer.

Speaking to News Today, Chitlapakkam Muthulakshmi Nagar Welfare Association president L Sundararaman said the association has been demanding the inclusion of Chitlapakkam in the Pallavaram-Pammal Metro water scheme for the past six years.

“Though assurance was given, nothing concrete has happened and we people suffered due to water scarcity. The heavy floods in 2015, 2016 and 2017 resulted in water entering the houses,and at the same time the wells and ponds were filled with water. Last year the monsoon failed, leaving almost all the water bodies dry,” he said.

Sundararaman said the residents were relieved when the Madambakkam, Chitlapakkam water scheme was announced a few years ago.

“But much to our disappointment, the work has not yet been completed. In the past two years, wells dried up in March-April and Town Panchayat supplied waster by tanker lorries based on the request of the residents. This time, due to monsoon failure, most of the wells became dry in the last week of January itself and there is no water in borewells also,” he added.

Sundararaman said in the present scenario the completion of the Madambakkam-Chitlapakkam water scheme is the only hope for the residents to survive the summer.

“In the meantime,we request the Chitlapakkam Town Panchayat to kindly arrange to supply drinking water through tankers as soon as possible,” he said. While the residents of Chitlapakkam are awaiting the completion of he Madambakkam-Chitlapakkam water scheme, residents of Madambakkam are up against the project as they feel that it will deplete their resource leading to water scarcity. A section of the residents have even approached the court to stop the project.