In Infra Vaani, noted urban infra expert Akhileshwar Sahay dissects infrastructural challenges of Indian cities and offers solutions. This week, he looks at Chennai, India’s Detroit.
On May 1, 2022, I came across a news story in a prominent daily, it read: ‘Koyambedu bus stand turns night shelter for over 1k homeless’.
The story was not a surprise for me – because Chennai’s 40,000 homeless are struggling to survive in this big city. Chennai, the first Indian city developed by the British, is crumbling under a humongous infrastructure deficit.
A Ticking Time Bomb
Chennai’s 2022 population at 11.5 million is nearly three times its 1981 population of 4 million. The city could be home to 15 million people by 2035. The city faces drought as well as deluge (it receives annual 140 cm rainfall). It will not be an understatement that: climate change threatens Chennai survival.
Chennai is a basket case of haphazard urbanisation, reckless industrialisation and callous water governance. 1974, 1982, 1992, 1996, 2003, 2017, 2019 were the years when Chennai went without water.
The year 2019 was scary – reservoirs below zero-level, dried up lakes, plummeted groundwater levels, schools, offices, hotels and restaurants shut – tanker-mafia ruled, water war raged, police had to protect water resources. India’s lifeline Indian Railway had to chip in with tens of millions of litres of water from far-off locations to save Chennai.
Chennai drought is human-induced disaster. The Chennai Master Plan, 2026 admits that the city’s waterways, Cooum, Adyar, Buckingham and Captain Cotton canal, Otteri and Mambalam, have turned into sewage drains.
The nemesis of ‘India’s Detroit’ is haphazard urbanisation and rampant industrialisation. It has gobbled floodplains, lakes, waterways and ponds. Chennai waterbodies in 2017 were down to 3.2 sq. km. from 12.6 sq. km in 1897, with bigger damages in recent decades, says an Anna University study.
The IT corridor, the symbol of the city’s modernity, was built killing 230 sq. km. marshlands. No wonder Chennai stares at Day Zero. With misplaced priorities, the waterbodies’ catchment areas and flood relief basins got blocked, paved over and used as foundations of new construction.
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Water Woes
Water poverty severely impacts those at the bottom of the pyramid or those staying on the city fringes. Municipal waterpipe grid is pipe-dream for them.
How much water does Chennai need? Water needs of Chennai and adjoining areas increased from 1321 mld (million litre per day) in 1981 to 1980 mld in 2021.
However, during the 2019 drought, Chennai Metropolitan Water struggled to deliver 500 mld water – even in better times, the water supply seldom crosses 830 mld. The findings of Mahindra-TERI Centre of Excellence study (2021) are scary – ‘water demand in Chennai Metropolitan Region will be 2238 mld in 2025 up from 2074 mld in 2019’. Water treatment plants can treat just 1294 mld. The study also says – built up area will grow to 708.3 sq. km. in 2025 (against 608.3 sq. km. in 2019) while waterbodies will shrink to 38.4 sq. (against 50.7 sq. km. in 2019).
The Chennai Metropolitan Water squanders water: its 35-40 per cent water distribution loss daily is next only to that of Delhi Jal Board.
With surface water in disarray, ground water is the default option. As per the Anna University study, 60 per cent groundwater will be degraded by 2030.
After the 2000 drought, Chennai got a new water harvesting policy but it failed due to poor implementation and inadequate maintenance.
And Chennai, among the wettest cities globally, took to the ‘desert solution’ to quench its thirst – desalination plants. Two plants of 100 mld each costing Rs 2,000 crore are already operational, a third of 150 mld and worth Rs 1,259.38 crores is underway and a fourth of 400 mld and costing Rs 6,078 crore is next in line.
The desalination plan is economics gone wrong. These plants are expensive energy gulpers with huge environmental costs.
Development at a Cost
The only way to save Chennai is by reducing consumption, bringing water loss to near-zero levels, undertaking rainwater harvesting at a massive scale, and through rejuvenation of waterbodies, desilting of lakes and checking corruption.
1903, 1943, 1969, 1976, 1978, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2002 2005, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2021 – this is no jigsaw puzzle, these are years when Chennai faced excessive rains or severe flooding. For decades, Chennai either is without water or drowns in water!
The Sixth Assessment Report (2022) of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sounds the alarm on high flood loss risks for several global coastal cities, including Mumbai and Chennai. Politicians, quite expectedly, blame heavy rains for deluge. In 2015, for instance, then Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa had reportedly said, “damages due to very heavy rains were inevitable”.
I wish it was that simple.
Climate change and city geography are aggravators. But the root cause of Chennai’s recurring deluge is destruction by construction. Chennai development has disrespected, disregarded and defiled the city’s hydrology. Despite tragedy of displacement, disruption and death, Chennai pursues a ruinous path – massacring wetlands, green cover and forested areas for built-space. In 2021, the city added more new office space than any other Indian metropolis.
During the 2015 deluge, 300,000 million cubic feet water was drained into the sea; if it was channelised and preserved, 2019 drought could have been prevented.
Chennai also could not prevent the 2019 drought because it had killed its golden goose. The natural flood basin of Pallikaranai marshland was destroyed and reduced to one-tenth of its original size. Massive construction killed water flow within the marsh.
The Wasteland
Drought, deluge and drainage are interconnected. With 50 per cent of Chennai without drains, its waterbodies daily gulp 1073 mld sewage. Stinking city is the obvious by-product.
The sewage treatment capacity is 727 mld. By 2025, Chennai will generate 1,789.2 mld sewage; unless treatment capacity is augmented, default sewage outlet will be into rivers, lakes and waterbodies. Stinking Chennai will stink more.
But sewage is untapped goldmine. Through decentralised waste water treatment at scale, Chennai can produce one kilolitre water at Rs 25, half of Rs 50 per kilolitre water from desalination plants.
In fact, sewage and solid waste are congenital twins. As per Columbia University’s Earth Engineering Centre – Waste to Energy Research and Technology Council report (2011), Chennai generates 6,404 tonnes of garbage daily, at 0.71 kg per capita – this is the highest in the country.
How much waste Chennai Metropolitan Region generates is unknown but estimates vary between 5,000 metric tonnes to 10,000 metric tonnes daily. As per the National Productivity Council report, Chennai generates 68 per cent residential, 16 per cent commercial, 14 per cent institutional, and 2 per cent industrial waste. The Central Pollution Control Board adds, with 420 tonnes daily, Chennai is India’s second biggest plastic waste generator.
On April 30 this year, 225-acre Perungudi dumping yard turned into an inferno. Four days, 13 fire-engines, two skylift costing Rs 20 crore, 120 fire men (24×7), millions of litres of water, 22 earth movers, 15 lorries, 7 jet rodding machines were needed to kill the worst landfill fire in decades.
Daily 5,000 trucks bring unsegregated garbage to eight solid-waste transfer centres from where starts their journey to the dump yards – Perungudi in South and Kodungaiyur in North. Both sit atop mountains of toxic garbage accumulated over decades. They are unauthorised dumping yards and violate the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.
Chennai daily sends 2800-3000 tonnes of garbage at Kodungaiyur and 2600-2800 tonnes to Perungudi, and this does not include another 1000 tonnes of construction waste. This is all unsegregated garbage despite Chennai Corporation making source segregation mandatory from October 2, 2017 for homes, institutions and commercial establishments in all 200 wards in 15 zones.
In 2000, Chennai became the first metropolis to privatise waste management with catastrophic consequences for the city, its citizens, its waste and conservancy workers.
But then came Manali, an oasis in the desert. Manali is a residential-cum-industrial area in Chennai. The success of the Manali Model is wrongly claimed by the private operator whose contract was green flagged with fanfare by Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami. The Manali model’s success should be attributed to the innovative idea of paying people Rs 2 per kg for segregated waste. Its architect was S. Devendran (2015), a municipal zonal officer.
In 2019, Manali became Chennai’s first zero waste zone. Manali streets are swanky clean, number of bins are down to half and volume of household garbage has reduced sharply. Only a tiny fraction of Manali garbage goes to the landfill. The Manali model shows that innovation by empowered citizenry can change the world. It is time to scale up the Manali Model.
Today many cities globally are pursuing zero-waste generation target. Chennai is trapped in the vice-like grip of littering, non-collection, non-segregation of waste and then dumping it in a toxic landfill. The Chennai Corporation will spend Rs 424 crore on solid waste this year, which includes street sweeping and waste truckage. ‘Zero Waste Chennai’ is an idea whose time has come.
Choking Chennai
Even if the city survives drought and deluge, Chennaites will start dying of air pollution.
A Greenpeace report says 11,000 Chennaites died of air pollution in 2020 and the economic loss for the year was Rs 1 lakh crore.
It is time to address the problem because the situation will worsen as Chennai continues pursuits of polluting industries, excessive construction, increasing dependence on automobile population for mobility needs, rampant waste generation, and unsegregated dumping in toxic landfills.
In 2012, a University of California, Berkeley study found Chennai was third after Kolkata and Delhi in vehicular fumes’ generation. In 2018, a Centre for Science and Environment study ranked Chennai second among 14 cities in per day particulate emissions. Proximate data is scarier. Based on observation for 24 hours (6 am on November 4, 2021 to 6 am next day), official data found that average AQI was 342 to 385 with very poor air quality.
Surviving by God’s Grace
I counted daily deaths on Chennai roads. I stopped abruptly when the count crossed 100 and uttered: by God’s grace, one survived Chennai roads.
Between 2015 and 2020, 2,191 pedestrians were killed and 9,754 injured on Chennai roads. The National Crime Records Bureau data says 1,262 were killed in road accidents in 2019. In 2020, the figure dropped to 872 – COVID forced many Chennaites to work from home.
The rage of Chennai roads is outrageous, and there are reasons for that.
One, road vehicle number has exploded beyond 60 lakh; it was 1.5 lakh, 6 lakh and 36 lakh in 1981, 1991 and 2011.
Two, with 2780 km-long roads, Chennai vehicle density (29,000 vehicles per kilometre) is 10 times worse than Delhi.
Three, rash driving defines Chennai drivers. In 2020, motorists booked for rash driving were more than in the year preceding COVID-19.
Four, number of two-wheelers in Chennai is highest in India – the riders are vulnerable to high fatality in road rage.
Five, Chennai is an industrial city; the heavy multi-axle freight carriers in mixed traffic kill more.
In 2004, the World Bank in its report ‘Urban Transport in Chennai and Bangalore’ said: ‘The worst off are pedestrians, whose mobility and safety are hindered by non-existent, broken-down, and/or obstructed sidewalks; difficult street crossings; and flooding in monsoon seasons. The bike riders, once a major urban transport mode in India, are gradually being pushed off busy roads by motor vehicles. These two groups account for half of all traffic fatalities.’
What was true in 2004 is truer in 2022. But the foot soldier gets a pushover because the city’s focus is car-centric infra. Also, the rent-seeking encourages capital-intensive solutions.
It is time to reinvent, redesign and scale up infra for pedestrians and cyclists with zero tolerance to encroachment of space meant for their movement.
To make matters worse, a 2008 study found that 27 per cent Chennai road-length was exclusively used for parking, which is way higher than other metropolises.
Search for definitive solution took me to two books: ‘The High Cost of Free Parking’ (2005) and its sequel ‘Parking and the City’ (2018) by urban planning expert Donald Shoup. He offers troika of solutions – one, charge fair market prices for on-street parking, two, spend generated revenue to benefit city, and three remove off-street parking requirements.
In contrast the Indian solution, so far, has been: free on-street parking, and costly to construct, maintain and use off-street multilevel pay-and-park model of parking. The result is a disaster – high demand for free on-street parking while pay and park spaces stay unused. It is time to exit the vicious ‘parking paradox’.
GRIDLOCKED URBAN MOBILITY
On July 22, 2021, on a writ petition by my friend Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy of the Madras High Court restrained the Tamil Nadu government from buying buses unless they were disabled-friendly. Even to date, Chennai remains non-compliant to the high court dictates.
But this is just one of the many issues plaguing the creaky bus system of Chennai. The exact number of buses with Metropolitan Transport Corporation or MTC and their roadworthiness is an enigma although the MTC website claims that 3,454 buses carry an average 28.48 lakh passengers/day. In 2010, they carried 55 lakh passengers daily in 2010. The MTC had 3,987 buses in 2016 and each bus daily carried 1,300 people, the highest in India.
For the fleet’s age analysis, I depended on information elicited through RTI by The Hindu in 2018. “Then only 674 buses were under five years old, 1,921 were between five and 10 years old, 1,121 10-13-year-old.”
After adding 2,000 red-colour buses built on truck chassis in 2018, as per the MTC website, the average age of the 3,454 bus-strong fleet is 8.14 years. While four-year-old 2,000 buses with floor height of four metre on truck chassis are unusable by children, elderly, disabled, and sari-wearing women, the remaining 1,400 are road-unworthy. Further, the Vehicle Scrapping Policy (2021) mandates scrapping of buses that are eight-year-old or have run 10 lakh km.
How many buses Chennai needs?
Urban public transport must provide solution to peak-hour gridlock. The number of buses depends on mode share, capacity of buses, daily kilometre per bus, average trips per person, trip-length, city size and peak hour features.
Singapore, a city state of 4.5 million residents, has 10,000 buses and China’s Shenzhen, with one-fourth population of proposed Chennai Metropolitan Area, has 20,000 electric buses.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MOHUA) benchmark is 60 buses for 1 lakh population. To meet MOHUA norms, as per current Chennai population, MTC needs 7,000 buses, and to meet the mobility needs of Chennai Metropolitan Area, the figure goes up to 10,000.
Even poorest Chennaite has a right to convenient, safe, comfortable, inclusive and affordable buses.
Let government purchase 10,000 AC – low floor Volvo/ Mercedes urban buses – ‘Make in India’ or ‘imported’ buses — they will cost less than Rs 1 crore per bus. A metro rail coach costs Rs 10 crore.
But who will bear the cost of 10,000 buses at Rs 10,000 crore? The state, who else? In Singapore, the Land Transport Authority, a government entity, buys and owns buses and operators SMRT and SBS run them.
Here is the pathway to get the money.
One, it had cost Rs 23,000 crore to build a 54 km-long Chennai Metro corridor which carries 1.5 lakh people daily. The cost of 10,000 buses will be 40 per cent of the Metro cost and buses will daily carry 50 lakh people, 33 times more than the Metro. ‘It is economics, stupid’.
Two, the Tamil Nadu budget is Rs 3,60,000 crore – the purchase cost for 10,000 buses is tiny 2.77 per cent. It is no brainer from where the money should come.
Three, in this year’s budget, Tamil Nadu has reduced ‘social welfare’ allocation by Rs 10,000 crore from last year. Let swanky 10,000 buses be a free social welfare gift from the state to Chennaiites – if there is a will, there is a way.
What about the operating loss?
Time to take a leaf out of Donald Shoup’s books. Allow 60 lakh Chennai vehicles owners to park vehicles on city roads, charge Rs 100 per vehicle per day, which is Rs 2,190 crore annually. Already 27 per cent Chennai road length is used for free parking of vehicles; soon, vehicles will occupy 50 per cent of the road length. Monetise it.
Make bus service 100 per cent free of cost. It will transform mobility. It will also be inclusive. Who else can do if not Tamil Nadu, the state that gifted free midday meal in schools in 1925. Let it gift free inclusive bus mobility in 2022.
On the Slow Track
The Bollywood song ‘Babuji Dheere Chalna’ sung by Geeta Dutt in the film ‘Aar Paar’ (1954) sums up the troubled journey of Chennai Metro Rail.
Madras did not get Metro Rail in 1990s, it was busy constructing a 20-km Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System, country’s first elevated rail line @ Rs 1,171 crore – completed over two decades, MRTS proved a white elephant.
MRTS was unmitigated disaster and died last month when it was decided to merge it with Metro Rail.
In 2006, Jayalalithaa toyed with the idea of toy train – a 300-km monorail to catapult public transport share in Chennai from 27 to 46 per cent. Then, the longest operational monorail network globally was 28.3 km-long in Osaka, Japan. The project, fortunately, has been put on hold.
It was only in 2009 when Chennai started constructing two-line, 45-km metro rail at snail’s pace. It was made operational in bits and pieces over a decade – first 10 km elevated stretch was opened in June 2015, the underground stretch in 2019, and a 9 km extension in 2021.
With 1.5 lakh daily ridership, high losses and higher debt servicing Chennai Metro belly, the crash landing is imminent.
The Mother of all Maladies
On February 14, 2017, Justices Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Amitava Roy of the Supreme Court of India delivering judgment in India’s most high-profile corruption case upheld the trial court verdict, sentencing Sasikala, Sudhakaran and J. Ilavarasi to four years in jail; with Jayalalithaa dead, appeals against her were abated.
If Chennai chokes due to haphazard construction, the chief conspirator will be the omnipresent corruption – the unholy politician-official-contractor nexus.
Journalist N. Ram in his book ‘Why Scams are Here to Stay: Understanding Political Corruption in India’ writes: “the seed of corruption in Chennai was first sown in late 1960s of Congress rule.”
The integrity of C.N. Annadurai, who became the Tamil Nadu (then Madras state) chief minister in 1967, was unimpeachable and for two years as the CM, before his untimely death, he ran a clean government. With Annadurai’s death, probity died in Tamil Nadu.
On January 31, 1976, M. Karunanidhi government was dismissed ostensibly on corruption charges. Justice Sarkaria Commission termed it ‘scientific corruption’ though in the final report most of 21 charges were unsubstantiated. The foundation for Tamil Nadu’s distinctive style of corruption was laid in MGR’s second term (1980-1984) – till then MGR was an anti-corruption warrior.
Over decades, the menace of corruption has become fiercer.
A Death Accelerator?
In July 2017, the Tamil Nadu Assembly got a rude shock when the state government announced the Chennai Metropolitan Area will be increased to 8,878 sq. km, making it country’s largest urban agglomeration.
The decision will be a death accelerator for Chennai.
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Akhileshwar Sahay is a noted urban transport infrastructure expert and President, advisory services at BARSYL, a consulting firm. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication or the company he works with.
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