Chennai is facing its worst water crisis in more than 30 years. It went without rainfall at a stretch for 200 days and the city reservoirs are holding less than 1% of their total storage capacity. It is now dependent on desalination plants to take care of its water requirements. The Chennai Container Freight Station (CFS) of Allcargo initiated efforts to mitigate the water crisis in Chennai.
Located in Thiruvottiyur High Road, Ernavoor, the CFS was instrumental in providing pure drinking water to the nearby families. The challenge was to not only to ensure uninterrupted supply of water to local residents but also replenish rapidly depleting groundwater levels. The CFS took on both the challenges successfully by coming up with ingenious water supply and conservation solutions. A borewell was sunk in the premises and connected to the RO plant at the CFS. A dispensing system was set up outside the CFS for the local residents to collect drinking water in pans and pots. The potability of the water was measured and monitored by the safety and maintenance team at the Chennai CFS on a regular basis.
Across the 23 acres (9.3 hectares) of area of the Chennai CFS, 26 trenches have been set up to replenish the ground water by storing rainwater. The rain water stored at those trenches will find its way to these trenches and eventually into the ground. There are four rainwater harvesting pits that help recharge the groundwater table. The total recharge capability of these pits is 5 million litres of water per annum which is a great number.
Allcargo is also running key intervention programmes in the drought-hit regions of Maharashtra under its ‘RAHAT’ initiative to make villages self-reliant in terms of their water needs.
Allcargo’s CSR arm Avashya Foundation runs a unique project called Maitree. Launched in 2014, Maitree aims to provide sustainable sources of livelihood to the tribal communities and economically backward population through tree plantation.
Maitree has benefited over 10000 farmers by undertaking tree plantation drive in the tribal regions of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Approximately 5 lakh fruit bearing trees have been planted in the tribal regions of Maharashtra since its inception. Avashya Foundation has announced that it will plant 1,02,500 trees by working with 2300 farmers in Jawahar, Mokada and Karjat the tribal belt in Maharashtra, under its Maitree 2019-2020 initiative.
