In a couple of weeks, Chennai roads will have more tankers plying on them, to supply drinking water. Chennai Metrowater is in the process of hiring additional tankers for water distribution to meet the demand.

While this would help in meeting the gap in water supply, the water agency would also have to address the issues of unaccounted for water and risk of road accidents, note residents. With the water resources dwindling, piped water supply is expected to be decreased gradually in the next few weeks and be replaced with mobile tanker supply.

At present, nearly 420 tankers are engaged to operate nearly 5,700 trips a day. This is likely to increase to a minimum of 800 tankers for which tender process is being finalised. The tanker trips may shoot up to nearly 7,000 daily in May. According to sources, bidders have quoted lower price by nearly ₹60 to transport per load of water owing to competition.

Citing the recent road accidents caused by water tankers, residents demanded that the water agency must take stringent action to prevent such accidents and also control illegal water supply in busy filling points such as those at MRC Nagar.

As the demand for tanker water has grown by a minimum of 10 % over the past one month, residents in various areas such as Adyar and Choolaimedu also wanted the number of filling points to be increased for faster delivery.

In a bid to address the issues of unaccounted water, Metrowater is now proposing to revive the project to fix GPS (global positioning system) equipment to track the vehicles. Though the proposal was chalked out about six years ago, it was not executed properly. Now, the water agency proposes to fit GPS equipment in vehicles on a trial basis to verify whether the tankers ply on the scheduled routes.

Officials of the Metrowater said periodical checks are being done to check mobile water supply. Moreover, surveillance cameras have been installed in filling points and additional filling points have been provided to avoid delay in supply.

“We have stopped water supply to commercial establishments like shopping malls and hotels through private vehicles. We plan to divert the 10 million litres a day available through this initiative to domestic consumers,” said an official.

At present, nearly 100 private vehicles source water from the Metrowater filling points at a commercial rate of ₹60 per kilolitre. But, the price is lower than that quoted by private water tankers, officials said.