India and its Inadequate Water Management
India has been taking steps to fight poverty. These steps have been useful, as well as redundant. 52% of the urban and rural population are classified as poor; it is a big challenge for India to fight poverty for years and years to come.
According to the World Bank, significant steps have been taken by different governments in India regarding poverty.
However, there are still a large number of people that live below or somewhere around the poverty line.
Not to mention that the difference between the rich and the poor has also been increasing, incredibly.
How is it not possible to see the reflection of the situation over water crisis and water availability?
Let take a look at the water crisis in India.
It cannot be denied that over the past decades, India has made massive improvements in water availability and water management.
But this improvement has left out the rural areas, in the sense that it was not judicially divided between urban and rural areas.
One crucial aspect to be noticed here is that the water is available in urban areas, but the quality of water is not good.
Different diseases strike India, and 21% of those diseases are waterborne diseases.
This goes on to say that water sanitization has not been prioritized at all.
The facilities of good drinking water come with a price which only some can afford through expensive water filters and tankers.
Safe drinking water is the right of all, irrespective of income. It is later seen that only 67% of the population obtain water through modern means.
The rest obtain water through traditional methods.
There is constant stress over water in India because India is an agricultural country.
Due to this, there is a tremendous amount of water involved in the irrigation process. Naturally, the level of water will deplete.
People living on the peripheries of cities also face a water crisis. To mitigate this problem, they dig wells.
Excess of digging well has resulted in more consumption.
Also, the cases of wells drying up left without restoration are quite popular in India.
A few NGOs are involved in restoring the dried-up wells. But they cannot do this on a massive scale because of limited finance.
India has a high incidence of corruption cases by the government. The root cause of such a state of water management can also be attributed to that.
The funds were acquired but never distributed honestly among the water-deprived areas for development.
This is going to be the case forever if things don’t change. The rich have been getting more prosperous, and the poor have been getting poor in this country, and the process looks like not stop anytime soon.
The problem will worsen because the population of India will increase by the year 2050. The increase is expected to reach 1.6 billion.
With such community and such state of water management, it is not possible to keep water crisis at bay.
It is said that the water crisis will become a significant political issue in the coming years.
It is also needless to mention that the only people who will suffer from it are ordinary people.
Those who are privileged will get away from any situation. So what are we doing? Should we start taking steps only after the situation is out of hand?
Or, should we start taking small steps from now?
In school, environmental education is given, but no one keeps it in mind. From throwing packets on the road to leaving the tap on while brushing, nothing has penetrated our heads.
It is about time!
It is hard to see some of the geographically privileged areas in India get ample rainfall, but there is no adequate provision establishing a rainwater catchment system.
Water is lost in a runoff. To trap this water and use it for daily use will be a good start.
