Water Alert

With 4 per cent of the world’s water resources and 18 percent of its population, predictions are that India will be severely water stressed and could far outstrip its supplies by 2020. Given the abundant rain and snow that we receive, our country’s  water related problems arise principally from unplanned use and misuse of this  natural resource, coupled with its  gross neglect and pollution.

Running Dry

Three quarters of our watershed forests have been denuded in the last 50 years and tree/vegetative cover reduced to less than 10 per cent. The result is fast run-off of rain-water, rampant erosion of precious topsoil and increasing severity of floods. Along with this there has been the abandonment of traditional rain water storage systems that existed in villages and served the needs people for more than 2000 years.

The consequent reduction of seepage and storage has greatly diminished the supplies to aquifers. The proliferation of energised wells has depleted ground water much faster than its replenishment and its ground water levels are dropping rapidly by 1 to 3 metres a year. Ground water is now the source of four-fifths of the domestic water supply in rural areas, and around half that in urban and industrial areas. Steep cutbacks in irrigation water supplies could reduce harvests by 25 per cent in two decades.

Annual per capita water availability which was 3450 cu. in 1951 and currently around 1800 cu.m, is expected to fall to 1600 cu.m by 2017 and plunge drastically to 1200 – 1500 cu.m by 2025. The total estimated demand for water in 2050 is over 1,000 billion cubic metres (BCM), up from 500 BCM in 1997.   Providing this would require investments of Rs. 5,000 billion during the next 25 years. India will need to double water supply by the year 2025 to ensure food, livelihood, health and ecological security for her growing population.

Tainted Streams

The quality of available water is also fast deteriorating. In 1982 it was reported that 70 per cent of all available water in India was polluted. The situation is much worse today. Both ground and surface water are  facing a  serious threat from contamination from industrial effluent and faecal matter, as well as chemical pesticides and fertilisers from farm run-offs, and toxic substances through wastes that are spilled or stored on land surfaces. 

Waste water generation has increased by 25 per cent in the last three years itself, to 33,000 MLD while treatment capacity remains the same at 7000 MLD with a huge gap of 80 per cent.

Over-extraction of ground water has also  led to salt water intrusion into coastal aquifers. It has also resulted in problems of excessive fluoride, iron, arsenic and salinity in water affecting about 44 million people in India.

The impending water crisis will affect the entire environment and every section of society.  It will severely impact food production, sanitation, hygiene and health. The water crisis also holds the potential for widespread unrest and instability.  

Unless priority is given quickly to creating an infrastructure to assure availability of water, there may be no water to meet the agricultural, domestic and industrial needs of a population that has tripled in 50 years, to more than a billion.