Engaging with Sustainability Issues in Metropolitan Chennai

Publication en ligne, City report series (Chance2Sustain) - ISSN 2309-8198Chennai is the largest metropolitan city in South India (8.7 million in 2011) and the provincial capital of the large state of Tamil Nadu (population 72 million in 2011). Before that, under British rule, the city was the capital of the Madras Presidency, and was known as Madras until 1996, when the name was officially changed to Chennai. Located on the east coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal, sea trade has been an important aspect of the regional economy since at least the colonial period. Still today, the city combines political functions with economic command functions for both manufacturing and services, reflecting the region's diversified economy. The Chennai metropolitan area has witnessed strong growth over the last 20 years in automobile manufacturing, software services, hardware manufacturing, healthcare and financial services (CDP 2009). However, it should be noted that only 30% of total employment in the city takes place in the formal sector i.e., is covered by contracts and labour laws, the remaining 70% falls in the informal sector. This underscores the importance of small and micro enterprises and self-employment for providing goods, services and livelihoods in the local economy

Water Governance and Climate Change Issues in Chennai

30 pagesDrawing on original research produced in the framework of the FP7 research project “Chance2Sustain” (www.chance2sustain.eu), this Working Paper provides an overview of key water and climate change issues in Chennai, India and analyses on-going challenges for directing governance towards sustainability principles. These issues take on special significance in Chennai, which has the lowest per capita availability of water among India’s large cities and where the city’s geographical location and groundwater depletion have made it susceptible to flooding and seawater infiltration, respectively. To examine these issues, attention is given to the fragmented institutional arrangements in place for governing water, as well as to the norms that underpin the dominant technoscientific discourse in terms of solutions (e.g., desalination plants, interstate pipelines), which tend to marginalize alternative voices. In order to zoom in on the key water issues, including climate-related water vulnerabilities, research focused in particular on one area, the “IT Corridor” in the city’s southern periphery, a mega project built to enhance economic growth by attracting new investments in the IT industry. The state government’s special policy for this zone, i.e., 24/7 water supply and efficient sewerage infrastructures, aims to reassure potential investors but meanwhile threatens to deepen already existing social and spatial inequalities in access to basic services. Moreover, the IT Corridor mega project increases risks for the fragile coastal ecosystem, including the Pallikaranai Marshland, which is already under threat from encroachments, garbage disposal and the dumping of untreated sewerage. The research indicates a crucial lack of awareness about the risks related to climate change among decision-makers, planners and residents. It concludes that the fragmented governance structure and lack of integrated analyses of hazards and socioeconomic vulnerabilities are the primary causes of water-related deficiencies in Chennai