The world’s second-most populous country is running out of water. About 100 million people across India are on the front lines of a nationwide water crisis. A total of 21 major cities are poised to run out of groundwater next year, according to a 2018 report. Much-needed monsoon rains have only just arrived in some places, running weeks late, amid a heatwave that has killed at least 137 people this summer. Groundwater, which has been steadily depleting for years, makes up 40% of the country’s water supply. But other sources are also running dry, almost two-thirds of India’s reservoirs are running below normal water levels, the country’s Central Water Commission said in June.
According to the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) report released by the Niti Aayog in 2018, 21 major cities (Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, and others) are racing to reach zero groundwater levels by 2020, affecting access for 100 million people. However, 12 percent of India’s population is already living the ‘Day Zero’ scenario, due to excessive groundwater pumping, an inefficient and wasteful water management system and years of deficient rains. The CWMI report also states that by 2030, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual six percent loss in the country’s GDP.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently created the Ministry of Jal Shakti (water power) to oversee water resource management and reiterated his election campaign promise to provide piped water to every rural home by 2024. But many fear it won’t be enough. According to a UN human rights report, the world is fast approaching a “climate apartheid” where only the wealthy can afford basic resources in the face of fatal droughts, famine, and heatwaves.
In some places in India, disaster has already arrived. The four reservoirs that supply Chennai, India 6th largest city, are nearly dry. Hundreds of thousands of residents wait in line each day to fill their pots at government water tankers, and critical services like hospitals and schools are struggling. People are forced to wash the utensils in the same dirty water, saving a few bottles of clean water to cook food. One apartment building in the Kilpauk neighborhood of Chennai pays almost 15,000 rupees every day for three 24,000 liter tanks, a precious resource that is inaccessible to low-income families. Without access to private tankers or rainwater harvesting systems, these low-income families are almost entirely dependent on groundwater for basic needs and thus are hit hardest in crises like this.
Urban lakes and inlets have been lost to encroachment and environmental degradation, meaning cities generally don’t have places to store usable rainwater. They also have limited water conservation infrastructure- rainwater harvesting systems, water reuse and recycling, and wastewater treatment. Taps have long run dry in cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad, meaning millions of people rely on emergency government tanks for water. Tankers mafias have been emerged, ruling who gets water and for what price.
When clean drinking water runs out, people will have no choice but to rely on unsafe water. Disease and illness could run rampant, leading to more deaths and higher infant mortality. In rural areas, young girls might drop out of school in mass numbers. As the ones traditionally tasked with fetching water, they will need to help their families, and walk much longer distances to rare water access points. And as the crisis intensifies further, there could be mass migrations to the already overpopulated and under-resourced cities.
Everyday experiences and studies have shown that more and more water bodies are disappearing from urban and rural landscapes due to uncontrolled urbanization leading to their encroachment for construction activities: dumping of sewage, industrial wastewater and construction debris and a shift from community-based water-use system to individual-oriented groundwater-dependent system, etc.
It is time to go back and start using our traditional practice of rainwater harvesting- catching water where it falls. Presently, India captures only 8% of its annual rainfall, among the lowest in the world. Another aspect is the treatment and reuse of wastewater. About 80% of the water that reaches households, leaves as waste and pollutes our water bodies and environment. There is a huge potential and recycling this treated wastewater at least for non-portable purposes, which is cost-effective. All this leads to the fact that we need to promote a decentralized approach, with a key focus on water conservation, source sustainability, storage, and reuse wherever possible. It is important to understand that managing the water situation is not the job of only engineers but all stakeholders including hydrogeologists, economists, planners and most importantly community themselves.
OFFICIAL MEDIA PARTNER: NEWSWIRE
OFFICIAL PROMOTIONAL PARTNER : IBS MESSENGER
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