India faces grave water crisis

By Lalith Sethi. Dated: 11/15/2018 2:45:42 PM

Many cities to go dry by 2020

After the complete withdrawal of the monsoon in September-October this year, the water woes of the people have been increasing by the day. Experts on the water crisis say that nearly 200,000 people could be dying every year because of water scarcity. They are unable to slake their thirst. But in official parlance, these could be cases of malnourishment and unquenched thirst. Sixty cities, including Indian metropolises, face a severe water crisis in the near future.
To aggravate the crisis, pollution levels in large parts of the country have been spiked with the farmers of Punjab, Haryana and western U.P. finding Diwali celebrations as an excuse to step up the burning of paddy stubble to prepare their land for wheat sowing. The National Green Tribunal has criticized the failure of these States to stop the burning of chaff and summoned its representatives to explain why they are not taking any action.
Breathing in many areas, especially Northern India, especially the National Capital Region, has been so hazardous that it is now in the severe category; particulate matter or PM is laden with heavy smog and the air quality index has touched 423 points.
On November 10 as many as 1,000 trucks were turned away from the 23 points of entry to the whole of Delhi, but they cannot be stopped for ever as truckers are clever enough to find ways of entry into the National Capital to deliver goods of all kinds and to take away a lot of goods manufactured or distributed from Delhi. Unlike Washington D.C. and other world capitals, where no big industry is allowed, Delhi sought to become an industrial hub via the Okhla area and several parts of western Delhi.
The pollution levels being high, there is no respite in sight for the people. In West Delhi's Mundka, dumping and burning of plastic and rubber waste continues unabated. The mountains of trash in many cities of India are unstoppable as people's consumption levels continue to grow. About ten years ago, the former Chief Minister of Delhi sought to persuade several small industries to leave the city, but there have been no administrative measures to relocate them, except that some units expanded and diversified their production in other parts of the country to be close to their markets. The present Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, values Rs. 50,000 crores in taxes and other income of his government.
India had fairly good natural resources in several States for its water supply to support a population of 320 million at the time of Independence. But in spite of dams built on river flows and creation of reservoirs, the number of people rising to 1.5 billion in 70 or more years thereafter, Indians have used up the scarce resource becoming scarcer than ever. According to one commentator, the burden of the activities of the mankind has exceeded the tolerance power of nature. India could face water shortages of great proportions. Not only the human being, even the animal world, including tigers, and several species of birds are threatened for survival.
Thousands of rivers around the world have dried up, several run dry before their destination, the seas and oceans, tens of thousands of water bodies, lakes, ponds and wells have also vanished over the years. The unchecked consumption of water in most cities forces the local water authorities to cut supplies for hours in a day.
The Meteorological Department has sounded a cyclone alert in Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Puducherry. Floods and rainstorms hit several States, including eastern and western parts of the country in winter and summer.
The story of severe water scarcity in Shimla and Bengaluru in summer this year and the Composite Water Management Index has been released by the Niti Aayog. The index claims that, by 2020, 21 major cities of India will run out of water and face "day zero" ~ a term coined after the water shortages in Cape Town in South Africa. But the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) says that more than 60 tier 1, 2 and 3 cities face severe water scarcity. It divides the country into 6,584 assessment units, and 16 % of them have "over-exploited" the resources as annual groundwater extraction exceeds the net groundwater availability.
The result is decline in the groundwater table. Four to 10% of the assessed units are in the critical stage. Most of the over-exploited units fall in the north-western States of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and western Uttar Pradesh; the western areas include cities in Rajasthan and Gujarat; and in the South, cities in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Tamil Nadu engage in excessive groundwater exploitation.
Cities likely to run out of water by 2020 are Hyderabad with the worst prospects: groundwater use is believed to be more than 400%. Chennai uses up 185% of its groundwater; Delhi exploits 127 per cent of groundwater but Hauz Khas, Kalkaji and Vasant Vihar take more than 250% of available groundwater; forests and gardens at times recharge the resources.
Twenty-one Indian cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad , will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people; 40 percent of India's population will have no access to drinking water by 2030, according to the Niti report.
The 2017-18 Economic Survey part of the Budget \brought up India's water crisis; the triggers are rapid groundwater depletion, the decline in average rainfall and increasing dry monsoon days. Groundwater in India was depleted by10 to 25 mm per year between 2002 and 2016. Average rainfall declined, from 1,050 mm in the kharif summer cropping season of 1970 to less than 1,000 mm in the kharif 2015. But during the winter cropping, or rabi season, average rainfall declined, from approximately 150 mm in 1970 to about 100 mm in 2015. Days without rainfall during the monsoons have increased from 40 per cent to 45 per cent.
India holds about four percent of global freshwater and 16 per cent of its population. Water-intensive agricultural practices and growing water demand for industrial, energy production and domestic use are stressing India's limited water resources, according to Mr. Samrat Basak, an expert on water issues of the World Resource Institute. Efficient utilization and recycling of water is the crying need of the hour, says Mr. Amitabh Kant, chief executive officer of Niti Aayog, but he passes the buck to the States and Union Territories.
In 2015-16, of the 24 states analysed 14 scored below 50 per cent on water management and have been classified as "poor performers" and are concentrated across the populous agricultural belts of northern and eastern India as well as the north-east and Himalayan States.
*(Lalit Sethi is a Journalist of long standing and a commentator on Political and Social Issues.)
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