INDIA’S PARCHED FUTURE

Young Bites. Dated: 6/15/2019 11:06:02 AM


Forty per cent of our population or more than one in three will have no access to drinking water by 2030. That’s less than 11 years away. Policy must be backed by individual restraint. A few days ago, a fight broke out in the city of Ranchi which resulted in the stabbing of at least six people. The brawl was not about an alleged theft or some form of disagreement that escalated quickly or any other incident commonly associated with a serious fight in broad daylight. Instead, it was over water. Benjamin Franklin had once said, “When the well is dry, we’ll know the worth of water.” While he meant to use this phrase as a metaphor, this quotation is now truer than ever in its literal sense. Water is an essential component of our lives. Just imagine a single part of your day without it. From the moment we wake up and wash our faces before having a cup of tea till the time we sit down for dinner: Water makes each of these activities possible. However, today, we stand at a crucial crossroad: To survive using judiciousness or perish due to ignorance and recklessness. Villagers from all over the country have been forced to evacuate their homes in search of newer water sources and habitats. The current water crisis, which has only been aggravated due to this year’s unrelenting summer, has forced a number of people to leave their homes and abandon their cattle and sheep since they do not have water to provide for them. It is no surprise that food production, too, has been severely hit. In Chennai, IT companies are asking their employees to work from home because they do not have enough water to sustain operations. In other firms, employees are being asked to bring their own drinking water since employers cannot guarantee drinking water during work. It is, therefore, obvious that a lack of water will soon enough stop our daily lives as we currently know it. Let me give some other worrying statistics, which I hope, will jolt one into action just as it has affected me. By the end of May, it was reported that 43 per cent of India was experiencing drought conditions. Furthermore, the country has witnessed a drought every year since 2015 (other than 2017). In many parts of the country, people are falling ill and are being admitted to hospitals, sometimes at huge expenses, because they are being forced to drink untreated water. In terms of groundwater, the situation is even more grim. Ground water, which serves 40 per cent of India’s needs, is being depleted at a frighteningly unsustainable rate. The NITI Aayog, a Government think-tank, has said in its report in 2018 that 21 Indian cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, will run out of ground water by 2020 and that 40 per cent of India’s population will have no access to drinking water by 2030. The year 2030 is less than 11 years away. This means that in a little more than a decade, more than one in three people in the country will not have access to drinking water. To bring this point closer home, if you are a family of four or five, it is likely that only two or three of you will essentially have access to drinking water by 2030. I must apologise for sounding apocalyptic but the time for sugar-coating is over. India is facing a ticking time-bomb and all of us, including our future generations, will face a disastrous scenario unless we get our acts together and start taking hard decisions. A good start has already been made by the Government. The BJP has decided to integrate all Ministries dealing with water-related issues into one Ministry — the ‘Jal Shakti Ministry’ — and has promised to provide clean drinking water to all households in the country. Unlike other promises made by the Government like ‘Smart Cities’ or ‘Make in India’, this promise cannot afford to fail. Even though I am from an opposing party, I sincerely hope that it does not turn out to be another jumla, reserved only for rallies of the Prime Minister. The Government, however, has not started out on the right foot. Asked about water scarcity, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the Jal Shakti Minister, responded by saying, “Water crisis is not as bad as the hype created by the media.” This comment was all the more surprising because only last month the BJP Government had issued a drought advisory to six States since water storage levels in dams had dropped to a “critical” level. Irrespective of whether Shekhawat thinks this is all “media hype” or not, it will not take much to figure out that we are suffering from a water crisis. Just look around. Our wells are drying up, getting drinkable water is becoming more and more expensive, we often end up standing in long queues for water. Are these not obvious signs of a crisis? Therefore, I urge you to take charge yourself. There is no doubt that India needs a comprehensive and well-thought out policy to tackle this issue. The Government needs to adopt a multifaceted approach which examines the kind of crops we should grow, the kind of resources we need to set aside and invest among other things. However, merely ignoring the problem because it seems too big can be disastrous. I urge everyone as a concerned citizen of India to take full responsibility to help avert this water crisis. There is enough of an impact you can create if you care enough about the situation. For example, at home, where we often leave the taps running or consume more water than is necessary, we must encourage family members and helps to use water judiciously. We can adopt water-saving techniques that are easily available online. At the office, too, you can ask your employers to use more waterefficient toilet stalls and host awareness sessions for fellow employees.

 

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