The Indian city of Chennai with a population of 9 million people was left without water due to drought

The urban population of India is increasing every year, and gradually there are problems associated with the growth of urbanization. The lack of quality drinking water is the most important of them. Climate change and increasing drought are leading to the depletion of aquifers used for urban water supply. This problem is most acute in several Indian cities, including Chennai, located on the east coast of the country.

More than 800,000 people live in the urban slums of Chennai, where the most difficult water situation has developed. People stand in queues for hours to get the water that they bring in special tanks.

Alas, what is happening in Chennai today cannot be called an exclusively problem of this city. Experts predict that in the next 2 years, all the major settlements of India, including Delhi, will face a lack of water for the same reason as Chennai: water horizons are depleted, and precipitation is catastrophic. In Chennai, located on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, it is planned to build desalination plants to produce high-quality drinking water. But due to lack of funding, it is difficult to say when this will happen. In the meantime, the city, where several large automobile factories, a commercial port, technology parks and 9 million people live, can only wait for the monsoon rains, which will bring the long-awaited coolness and water from the surface of the ocean.