Minister Asks God for Rain as Indian City's Water Crisis Deepens
- Chennai to get 10 million liters of water shipped by train
- Water in Chennai reservoirs are at less than 1% of capacity
Chennai residents gather water from a communal well.
Photographer: Arun sankar/AFP via Getty Images
Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu that’s reeling under a severe water shortage, will get the resource transported from other parts of the state even as a provincial minister performed a ceremony appealing to the Hindu god Shiva for rain.
The city, gateway to the Indian factories of Hyundai Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co., will get 10 million liters transported from other parts of the state daily, the government said in a statement. Meanwhile D. Jayakumar, the province’s fisheries minister and a leader of its ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, participated in a Hindu ritual called yagna -- where symbolic offerings are made to fire -- invoking Shiva to deliver rain, said N. Balaganga, a party district secretary.