During water crisis Should big recreational water users like water parks be closed?

The water scarcity, which started in past , has worsened in the past month forcing eateries, schools and IT parks to shut or limit working hours as even private tankers were unable to source water, their attempts to pump water from agricultural fields meeting with strong opposition from villagers. Some hospitals have even stopped delivering babies due to acute water shortage. Despite the crisis, people who recently visited amusement parks in and around the city said there were no signs of water conservation and all water rides remained open. “Though some land rides were closed, all water rides were open. The women’s toilet was almost flooded as most taps were not closed and some were leaking,” said Sharon, who visited an amusement park near Tambaram.

Amusement parks, swimming pools (standalone and at star hotels) have continued to function by buying large quantities of water from private tankers or drawing water from borewells even as the city’s residents have had to wait for at least three weeks to get a minimum of 12,000 litres from private tankers given most borewells have gone dry.

A member from the management team of a popular amusement park in the city said that although it was a challenge to source water nowadays shutting down wasn’t an option as the families of over 200 workers were dependent on them. “We used to get water from our own lake, but that is completely dry now. Hence we are dependent on water from tankers and groundwater. We need about 35,000 litres a day,” 

“Five-star hotels continue to use huge quantity of water. Meanwhile, many hospitals and housing units suffer heavily. The worst hit are the slums,” said, an expert in the field of water resource management. Due to irrational crisis management groundwater will be depleted leading to an ecological disaster, he lamented. “In a world dominated by markets and private profit, it’s going to be difficult to regulate water use between essential and luxury uses. But this may be the need of the hour,” he said, adding that money power and political backing will be major hurdles the government would have to overcome to manage water more effectively. “Also the government cannot and will not antagonize big market players,

The government will also have to weigh any decision to close such non-essential facilities against the impact on the employees of such entities. Activists said that owners of such establishments would have to pay their staff salaries for the period in which the mall or amusement park is closed. 

Experts said that the poor were the ultimate victims as the affluent would continue to buy water. Further, as it is up to a company to decide whether or not it will continue paying staff if the facility is temporarily shut, the fate of staff families will be up in the air. “Malls, theatres and amusement parks have thousands of families dependent on them. If they are shut for five months, people will lose their daily earnings. But due to the severity of the water crisis, morally, this is the right decision to take,” said Kripa R, an independent researcher on urban planning.

Another option the government could consider would be rationing of water for such industries, said Jayaram Venkatesan of Arappor Iyakkam. He said that the slums were most affected as only 45 MLD out of 88 MLD distributed in 9,800 trips by Metro Water reaches them. “The government definitely needs to shut down such water-intensive industries. People think that recent rains will make a big difference, but this is not the case. If the city wants to manage its current sources, the government has to shut down such establishments for the greater good,