The reasons for water scarcity

There are two converging phenomena leading to water scarcity: growing freshwater use and depletion of usable freshwater resources.

What are the measures taken by the government to tackle the intensifying water crisis? During the summer of 2019, Chennai has seen a terrible water crisis. It is decided by lottery as to who would fetch water from the well. Many hotels, restaurants, students’ hostels had been shut down in Chennai. School vacation in Karnataka had been extended. Many people in Maharashtra had left home and are staying in relief camps. Government is claiming to be sending water-tanks to supply drinking water to drought-affected areas. Then what would happen to other households? The government has of course not declared any area as drought-affected. There is now a newly constituted Ministry of Jal Shakti. All water-related departments including those of the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development, Ganga Rejuvenation, Drinking water and Sanitation have been merged and brought under one umbrella claiming that it would remedy the problem. But the union irrigation minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat sitting in the capital city claims that there is no scarcity of water or drought in the country.

People are rising into protest. For long, the hapless peasants starved of adequate irrigation facility were first resenting and then burst into protest. But the authorities remained unfazed, except making certain hollow promises and customary assurances of taking remedial steps. Now, the urban dwellers have come out on the streets. Millions of people are running out of usable water in the southern Indian city of Chennai, which is experiencing major droughts and a rapidly worsening water crisis. At least 550 people were arrested in the city of Coimbatore for protesting with empty water containers in front of the municipal government’s headquarters, accusing officials of negligence and mismanagement. Meanwhile, four reservoirs that supply Chennai, the state capital and India’s sixth largest city, have run nearly dry.

The current Prime Minister has talked of providing piped water for all by 2024. But the government did not spell out how it would plan to protect the sources of water, stop the over-consumption, wastage and intense over-exploitation of groundwater and strengthen (and in many cases re-establish) the link between groundwater and surface water. The current Finance Minister in her recent budget speech also reiterated the customary promise that water for all would be provided by 2024 and the government would focus on integrated management of piped water, including focus on creating local infrastructure (rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge and so on).

But, she did not elaborate on the details nor did she talk about how much funding this would get. Also “Indian government is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 - which promises that by 2030 everyone will have access to clean water - decent sanitation and good hygiene” [2] . But this could be a dream like any other failed schemes of the government.

Is the crisis natural calamity or man-made?

Hence the obvious question is, why this crisis? To any discerning person, it would be obvious that this crisis is indeed man-made. Many projects were announced to tackle drought, problems of irrigation and ensure supply of potable water. But facts show that all these projects have either been defective or not implemented because of rampant corruption and pilferage, faulty planning, engagement of incompetent persons. These question the intent itself. Dams were created using public money to store water during rains and release them when there is drought or shortfall of monsoon or for irrigation purpose. But we find when it rains, the dam reservoirs overflow and water is released to cause flood. On the other hand, when there is scarcity, dam water is not made available.

Why so? Because there is no proper maintenance, cleaning of accumulated silt in the reservoir. Because of faulty irrigation projects by the governments as also forced change of the path of the rivers, natural flow of rivers and accumulation of underground water through seepage has been disturbed. So, people have not got water but huge public money has been drained out. Mega-irrigation projects have failed to meet the needs of irrigation. Rather, these have disturbed, if not destroyed ecological balance.

Secondly, the so called modernized agriculture of cash-crops which the government has been stressing upon for the sake of fabulous benefits for multi-nationals and monopoly houses who have virtually taken over entire control of producing and distributing essential agricultural inputs and compelling the peasants to go for cash crop cultivation on contract, are using excess water. Reckless use of groundwater for such purposes as well as mushrooming of realty business and urbanization are among the major factors behind the water crisis. Even desalination plants are miserably less in number.

Giant multi-nationals like Pepsi and Coca Cola who found a lucrative area in bottled water and soft drink business for minting huge profit are pumping groundwater at will. Privatization of water resources is another main problem in the cities. When the Government does not provide drinking water, people are forced to buy it at an abnormal cost. Bottled water has become the main stay in city life, offices and social functions and demand for it is increasing every day due to the growing population. It has become another way of making super profit by water companies. In most of the cities drinking water suppliers are doing lucrative business.

It is interesting to note that most of municipalities and city corporations in Bihar and UP have taken up the task of large scale digging the submersible bore wells in the localities, to cope-up with drinking water shortage by spending hundreds of crore of rupees in which traders and contractors are minting money. But they also understand this is a short term solution and in few years all these bore-wells will dry up, when water level goes further down. Some of the cities like Jalandhar in Punjab have banned these bore-wells.

First we killed our water resources. Now we are paying heavy price for the same water from water mafias. Cities are most affected because of land mafia in connivance with political establishments in all states have destroyed land and filled all the lakes, water bodies, ponds, tanks, river-beds and catchment areas which not only helped drainage but were the natural water storage at time of rains, and could recharge the ground water, our wells and kept level ground water high. But indiscriminate covering of these low lying land and water bodies, by the builders, real estate mafias, then selling the lands for construction of buildings, houses, roads have led to a situation in which today most of the high rise buildings, apartments, palatial houses stand on the beds of these lakes and ponds and rivers. Encroachment of public land has become our national abuse. Conversion of cities into concrete jungles has left no space for rainwater to percolate for recharging of ground water table. This is the case in most of our big and small cities of the country.

So, the issue of water scarcity is linked with policies on land use and water management. Unwarranted mindless land use affects surface water sources and thus also groundwater. So, land use policy must pay attention to judicious use of land for urbanization, agriculture, development of industrial and residential complexes etc.

The need of the hour

India is not a water poor country. The cause of this basic problem are inefficient use of water resources and its management. The best solution for drinking water crises would be to recreate and revive all our natural water bodies lakes, rivers, streams and ponds all over the country. “Groundwater level can be improved by rainwater harvesting and artificial groundwater recharge in states like Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab at war footing, as well as in rest of India. Nearly 65% of the rainwater in India is not harvested and runs off into the sea, creating soil erosion on its way. One of the major steps to save water could be to encourage cultivation of less water consuming crops like maize, pulses, and oilseeds in water stressed regions and water guzzler crops in water rich areas [7].

But over and above these, it must be remembered that in an economic system with the sole motive to maximize profit, the governments are the least bothered about solving the people’s problem. So the people have to ultimately organize resistance movements for immediate relief from the mounting drinking water crisis. This movement cannot succeed until and unless we recognize the root cause, the profit-driven economic system and the monopolist corporations running it. So the movement against water crisis should address both the sociopolitical and the economic reasons simultaneously, which must garner its strength uniting all sections of people not only of the affected areas, but also of the country as a whole.