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Private water tank operators withdraw strike
Posted on: 18/Oct/2018 11:57:28 AM
For the past 3 days, the private water tanker operators have been on strike! And now, it has come to an end. The strike burst as groundwater extraction towards commercial usage was banned by a recent government order. Opposing this, the tanker owners went on strike following which there were discussions that took place between the owners and the government where the latter agreed to the demands placed. After arriving at a mutual agreement, the packaged drinking water units have now nodded for resuming production and supply both of which were hindered during the strike.
Speaking about this, the President of Tamil Nadu Private Tanker Owners Association N.Nijalingam said that they have decided to withdraw the strike as the Minister S.P. Velumani has come forward to get the issue resolved. We are sorry about the inconvenience caused to the public, he adds.
3 days of inconvenience. Hotels shut!
In the past three days, more than 4,100 tankers at Kanchipuram, Chennai and Tiruvallur were on strike, thus largely hitting hotel businesses, eatery outlets, residential complexes, and IT corridors.
At the residence of Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, there were discussions with the officials following which talks were held between the Managing Director of Metro Water – Ashok Dongre, PWD Secretary – S.K. Prabakar, and the representatives of drinking water units.
So, from today, as the issue has got resolved, over 1.4k packaged drinking water units shall come to flow.
The packaged drinking water units have nodded to continue with their production. To note, the Minister of Water Supply and municipal administration had requested for quicker action in meeting the demand for water.
The MC order
As far as the order by the Madras High Court is concerned, the order by public works department that dates back to the year 2014 was upheld by the MC last week. This order states banning of drawing and transporting groundwater for commercial purposes hinting it to be overexploitation. Because of the court verdict, we are scared of further operations, said Nijalingam. Actually, we do what the government is supposed to do, he adds.
According to the complaint from the side of packaged units, clearance is pending from the end of PWD even after the court order. The cases are totally different between the tanker industry and packaged units. What we do is extraction for drinking purpose, but the government says that our request shall be taken into account upon passing out the order to the district collectors soon, said V.Murali, the Greater Tamil Nadu Packaged Drinking Water Association.
To note, there are over 1400 packaged drinking water units of which 500+ are in Chennai. From today, the Thursday, all these shall get functional.
