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NEW DELHI --
“Mama, what’s the big deal about water? Just give them Pepsi
instead.” A reaction of a 12-year-old urban school student to
the drought sweeping the country, and words that reflect the
tragedy and brutality of present-day India. Even though Indians
always boast of their great ancient rivers and plentiful waters --
yet throats of many remain parched until death finally brings an
end to their agony.
Official
statistics put the number of drought-affected districts in the
country at over 960 in 12 states. Worst hit among them are
Rajasthan and Gujrat. Twenty-six of the 32 districts of Rajasthan
alone comprising 23,406 villages are taking a direct hit from the
drought. The loss of crop ranges from 75 to 100 per cent. The
total population affected in these districts is 261 lakh while
that of livestock 345 lakh. In Gujrat, 250 lakh people and 71.33
lakh livestock are affected in 9,421 villages. Bringing things to
such a pass that in the Rajkot district of Gujrat state, Korean
multinational Samsung is enticing people with a daily supply of 5
litres of water (1.25 gallon) per day for 45 days to buy a TV!
In Madhya
Pradesh, 26 lakh people, 32.4 lakh cattle and 9.53 lakh hectare
are affected in 3,240 villages. The people have started migrating
to the neighboring states abandoning their animals.
Cows are being left behind with a propitiatory tilak on their foreheads, seeking forgiveness for abandonment. Their
carcasses are littered all over.
Indeed, what’s
the big deal? Millions of words have been written on drought and
water scarcity and millions more will continue to be written. But
it’s like water off a duck’s back. Everyone goes through the
stereotype motions—drought, famine and relief are words, which
are freely bandied about. Appropriate noises are made, and hollow
concerns for instant remedies expressed at a time of crisis only
to be dismissed later as a post-crisis bad dream. The Government
rushes additional supplies of food grains, costing the exchequer
Rs. 425 million; the railways runs "water" trains,
enough to satisfy people’s conscience that they have done their
part for the nation.
As the water
crisis stares the country in the face, there is no gain saying
that the Indian state has failed. But it’s a systematic failure
over several decades. In the last 50 years, there has been no
proper planning to mitigate natural catastrophes. And ever since
the green revolution, our policies have got more skewed. The
failure of the state is essentially the failure of the development
paradigm it has adopted. Over the last ten years, governments in
New Delhi and state capitals have slashed spending in areas that
deserve more money. A survey of 25 states show a steady drop in
funding allocated for irrigation, soil conservation and water
management. For example in 1997-98, states spent 7.41 per cent on
irrigation and a measly 0.4 per cent on soil conservation and
water management while the expenditures had fallen to 6.18 and
0.38 per cent respectively by 1999-2000.
Tragically,
India continues to be dependent on the goddess of rain. Good
monsoon means abundant water and a bad one—drought. Of the 4,000 b cubic meters of rain – 75 per cent falls
during the 70 to 90-day monsoon. Only 1000 b cubic meters falls
during the remaining the nine months. Moreover, the rainfall
varies from a low of 0.50 to 55 mm to a high 12,000-13,000 mm.
Also, our land and water resources are stretched beyond limits due
to burgeoning population. India’s land mass of 329m hectare
accounts for only 2 per cent of the globe’s land area, while its
population is 16 per cent. Thus, the land’s carrying capacity
has been exhausted.
Besides there is
not a single river a city has escaped decay from; the huge waste
from urban gutters, chemical and industrial effluents and filth
has turned them into slow streams of dense poison. For instance,
the Yamuna near Delhi is classified as "dead" for a
stretch of around 32 Km around Delhi. It contains dangerous level
of pesticides and industrial toxic waste. And its water table
falls by 0.15 meters every year. Under the Ganga action plan, Rs.
3 billion have been spent for cleaning the river but it yet
remains a feted channel infested with faecal coliform bacteria.
According to Fisheries Research Institute, there may be no rivers
left in a few decades. Plus two-thirds of the country’s fresh
water is lost every year due to evaporation and run off to the
sea. Water was found to have high concentration of flouride in 17
states. Studies conducted in 1996 and 1997 found arsenic
contamination in groundwater in eight districts of West Bengal
affecting 30 million people.
Unfortunately,
politicians have not hesitated to muddy the waters. The result is
that large areas, which once had abundant supply of water, now
reel under water shortage, as funds available for investment have
dried up. But in the backdrop of 67 per cent of the population
still depending on rain, groundwater continues to be lifted
indiscriminately resulting in a sharp drop to 3 to 5 per cent
every year in the water levels(from 20-30 ft. to 300-400 ft.).
Already in Gujrat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar the water
level has plummeted. Unsustainable exploitation of ground water
has depleted underground aquifers (layer of rock or soil that
holds or transmits water) in many districts of Punjab and Haryana.
In Mehsana (Gujrat) and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), the aquifers
can’t be recharged.
The groundwater
level in the dustbowl of Barmer, Sirohi and Jalore, Rajasthan has
gone down from about 20ft. two years ago to about 125ft. now.
Most surface water sources have dried up. It is estimated
that on an average about 300 square meters are being bulldozed
daily. In some areas, all the three levels of soil stand
exhausted. Sad indeed for a country that boasts of deepest soil
absorption in the world; the Gangetic plain where fertile soil can
be found at 16000ft.
Pertinently,
nothing has been done to explore and harness the groundwater in
the northeast, which is better endowed and has over 12,000 mm of
rainfall. Minor irrigation projects, which would prove successful,
have been given a go by. Politicians are interested in only major
and medium irrigation works. The focus on large, expensive
projects ensures that local problems are not given the attention
they deserve. This leads to regional disparities, as irrigation
can be assured to only 33 per cent of India’s agriculture. As it
stands, the Government has spent over Rs. 90,000 crore since 1951
on these projects. One of the reasons for the failure of the
government to solve the problem of recurring drought is that the
money is spent, though astronomical in figure, for the "dig
and fill-up" type. There was no attempt to link the grants to
the creation of permanent assets, which could take care of the
people during their crisis.
It is feared
that India along with 29 other countries will face severe water
crisis by the year 2025. As compared to the world’s per capita
availability of 8,500 cubic meters of water, India stands at a
meagre 2,200 cubic meters. A 1997 Tata Energy Research Institute
(TERI) report says that per capita water availability will drop to
1600 cubic meters in 2017 compared to 6000 cubic meters in 1947.
In certain areas of Tamil Nadu, it is already down to 400 cubic
meters. Thus, the decision of policy makers to promote tubewells
and big dams depleted the local ground water supply often the only
source of drinking water in rural India. A United Nations study
(1998) says that two-thirds of humanity will suffer from moderate
to severe water shortage within the next 30 years. Since 90 per
cent of water is used for agriculture, you can expect successive
crops failure and food scarcity. Every year the target is set to
double food production but it has failed for the last three years.
In reality, India has taken more than 30 years to increase the
production to 210mt. now from 105mt.in 1968.
Sadly, little
has been done since the British days to use rain water. Facilities
which existed during the time of the erstwhile princely states of
India are lying unused, like the one in Amer fort in Jaipur,
Rajasthan which has a capacity to store 3 million litres of
rainwater. Ironically, Cherapunji, in Meghalaya which has the
highest rainfall in the world faces acute water shortage for at
least nine months in a year. It is undeniable that a large part of
the problem can be solved by harnessing simple rain harvesting
technologies which are optimally managed at the level of local
government.
In addition to
this, most of the green cover has been removed and taken for crop
cultivation. Little attention is paid to per hectare yield. In
scarce areas, commercial food grains, (water guzzling crops) are
given favorable treatment in terms of support price structure.
This has led to low cultivation of coarse grain production, which
require hardly any water. But they have no monetary gains.
A serious
problem is that these disasters abruptly terminate normal sources
of income for the people, as the value of their already negligible
assets of livestock and land, drops down sharply for distress
sales. This deprivation makes the food-for-work programs expensive
and difficult. Severe costs are inflicted on the beneficiaries
such as commuting to work, foregoing alternate uses of their time
and having to labor for long hours in the hot sun, at a time when
they are already overstressed. Besides only half the relief money
can be used to cover wage costs, the rest for material and
equipment. Needless to say that the drought will certainly leave
an adverse impact on the Indian economy which will last for at
least a couple of years. An acute shortage of fodder availability
will result in mass deaths of livestock, and eventually reduction
in cattle wealth of the people.
The purchasing power of the poor would see a sharp
downslide. This reduced purchasing power would have an effect on
the overall demand for the manufacturing goods and the service
sector.
The
availability of food grains will reduce and distribution will be
affected with acute shortages in pockets. The drought will lead to
a decline in rural savings and in turn take its toll on the
national savings and investments. The government will have to cut
back on revenue spending, and water management will have to be
decentralized to the community level. Clearly, India is heading
for a slow down in the national economy with an increased
unemployment problem.
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