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To weather the impending water crisis, Anna Uni to hold exams earlier

In view of the looming water crisis in TN, Anna University has decided to advance the semester exams by a month to wind up the session before the crisis peaks in summer, reports the New Indian Express.

 The institution will now be working on Saturdays, so as to finish the syllabus and wrap the semester early, in an effort to meet the water demand of thousands of staff and student residents.

 The NIE quotes the college circular as saying, “Due to the failure of monsoon in Chennai, it has been approved to squeeze the…semester by conducting classes on all Saturdays from 28th January.” Following this, the semester exams would reportedly be held in April, a month earlier than usual.

 The report adds that the 37 hostels on the University’s campuses house 7,500 students, in addition to the staff and require eight lakh litres of water per day. Three lakh litres are supplied to the staff quarters and another three lakh litres are allotted to hostels. The remaining water is supplied to departments, labs and classrooms, according to Prof VK Stalin, estate officer of the University. 

 Among the four campuses, three of them receive Metro water. These include the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), AC Tech and School of Architecture and Planning (SAP). Madras Institute of Technology (MIT) depends on groundwater, which is reportedly depleting fast.

 However, with the water in city reservoirs dwindling to alarming levels, Chennai Metro Water has reduced the supply to five lakh litres a day. Used to getting water round-the-clock, hostel residents now receive it only from 5.30 am to 9.30 am and from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm.

 The university, the NIE reports, spends between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 4 lakh a month to procure water through private water tankers, which has apparently led to financial constraints.

 The crisis, which began even before the summer, will predictably peak in May. “This has led to the decision to finish the syllabus as early as possible,” the report quotes the University registrar S Ganesan as saying.

Source: The News Minute