I have a set of aunts and uncles who would keep saying that the water woes of Madras can be instantly solved if they desalinate the sea water and denounce the government for not doing so.
They also used to say that "it is so simple - just connect all the rivers of India - it will solve all our water woes". When young I did not see it, but as I grew up, I saw that they all think in black and white. I begin to suspect it is a typical of Madras-living Tam brahm 'mamas and mamis' of that generation.
I was reminded of this when I just heard a talk by Subranium Swamy where he gives nice facile solutions to all problems in the country.
"Connect all the rivers"
"Bring back all the money stashed in the Swiss banks" etc
His target audience......Mylapore mamas and mamis.
A study on river linking in a region of India. They highlight some of the problems.
Swamy is an economist. I am sure he knows better than anyone else the consequence of infusing large amounts of money into our, or any, country.
As for my uncles' desalination scheme:-
According to Wikipedia, sea water has 3.5% salt on an average. A conservative estimate is that 1 million people will require 250 million litres of water per day for domestic use. If they all rely on sea water, that would generate about 8000 Kg of salt per day on desalination. Assuming Chennai has about 5 million people, that is 40000 Kg of salt produced per day. How much of this will get used by industries? Where will we put the remaining?
They also used to say that "it is so simple - just connect all the rivers of India - it will solve all our water woes". When young I did not see it, but as I grew up, I saw that they all think in black and white. I begin to suspect it is a typical of Madras-living Tam brahm 'mamas and mamis' of that generation.
I was reminded of this when I just heard a talk by Subranium Swamy where he gives nice facile solutions to all problems in the country.
"Connect all the rivers"
"Bring back all the money stashed in the Swiss banks" etc
His target audience......Mylapore mamas and mamis.
A study on river linking in a region of India. They highlight some of the problems.
Swamy is an economist. I am sure he knows better than anyone else the consequence of infusing large amounts of money into our, or any, country.
As for my uncles' desalination scheme:-
According to Wikipedia, sea water has 3.5% salt on an average. A conservative estimate is that 1 million people will require 250 million litres of water per day for domestic use. If they all rely on sea water, that would generate about 8000 Kg of salt per day on desalination. Assuming Chennai has about 5 million people, that is 40000 Kg of salt produced per day. How much of this will get used by industries? Where will we put the remaining?
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