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"With human population continuing to rise above what some of
us may feel is beyond their capacity, the need for natural resources
gets stretched mighty thin. For wildlife, we depend upon what nature
provides to sustain us in our every day lives. But humans seem to
think they can find ways to continually manipulate nature to get what
they need…. But I wonder, what will humans do when the bare
essentials really do run out? "
— Woodchuck
Any hope for India's water woes?
By Asha Ramachandran, New Delhi, Mar 21 (IANS)
 It
is a grim reality that millions of Indians queue up every day at public
taps for one of life's most precious commodity — water.
With summer fast approaching and memories of bad monsoon years still
fresh in people's minds, questions are being raised over what continues
to ail India's water resources.
"If we have to work towards water — clean water —
for all, then we have to accept that we don't have the answers as
yet," says Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science
and Environment, a leading green NGO.
The present government effort, Narain says, is to build pipedreams.
Taking the example of the accelerated rural water supply programme,
she says that the government spent Rs.100 billion over the last five
years without making significant gains.
Only 30 percent of villages were covered by the scheme and they soon
faced broken pipelines and hand pumps that did not work or increasingly
became polluted.
According to the Central Ground Water Authority, the annual recharge
of water is far less than what is consumed. The situation is more
alarming in urban areas due to population pressure and industrial
growth.
India's total groundwater sources provide around 43 million cubic
metres (mcm) of water, of which only seven mcm is reserved for drinking
and industrial purposes while 36 mcm is reserved for irrigation.
The total need is, however, assessed at 64 mcm.
Lengthening queues at public water taps in cities and longer ropes
to draw water from village wells are thus not a surprising feature.
Take New Delhi for instance. Its 14 million people need 830 million
gallons per day (mgd). The Delhi Jal Board supplies 650 mgd, of which
190 MGD is lost from leaking pipes.
Which means just half of Delhi's needs are met by the water utility.
The rest is drawn from groundwater reserves. The board estimates that
Delhi's water tables are dipping by an average of 0.4 metres a year.
In Gujarat, nearly 14,000 villages suffer from severe water scarcity
every year. Groundwater tables have dipped around 3-4 metres every
year, according to a report by NGO Utthan.
Add to this the high levels of pollution in water bodies, including
lakes and rivers.
Sewage disposal, industrial effluents, chemicals from farm run-offs,
and arsenic and fluoride contamination have made water extremely poisonous
both for consumption and irrigation.
A seminar on water organized by Earthcare Foundation spoke of India's
varied rainfall patterns with people in different parts evolving suitable
traditional methods to cope with shortages or surplus water.
These traditional water-harvesting regimes helped people to optimize
the management of water resources and thus helped in water conservation,
it said.
"The first step is to teach educated people
the need for water conservation," quips Anupam Mishra, an activist
with the Gandhi Peace Foundation. He refers to the wealth of tradition
knowledge in the country, which modern "pipe engineers"
have destroyed.
"We will have to revive old methods of holding and storing water
in each habitation to build and recharge ground reserves," says
Narain. "As little as 100 mm of rainfall caught over just one
hectare of land would harvest one million litres of water."
The key is to work with local communities to conserve the precious
natural resource, says Nafisa Bhanot, who heads Utthan. "A movement
led by local people is needed everywhere," she says.
What is needed is a mix of technologies, says Indira Khurana, a researcher
working in Gujarat. "Rainwater harvesting alone is not the answer,"
she notes.
The Gujarat government has, she says, taken several steps to encourage
community participation in water management while it looks at other
means. These include transfer from water surplus to deficit areas.
Reprinted with permission from India/Kerala
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