Crisis for the drop (An outline of Indian water crisis and the desert of future)

  

“Water water everywhere, and all boards did shrink; water, water, everywhere, but nor any drop to drink!”

            If you want a state of such unquenchable thirst, then stop reading this lengthy epitaph on water’s tomb, because you will never understand the worth of water until the well runs dry.

Global blue scenario in a nutshell-

            Though, the forests still covers about 30% of the world’s land area, they are disappearing at an alarming rate. Between 1990 and 2016, world lost 50,200 square miles (1.3 million square kilometers) of forest according to the World Bank. The deforestation rose at an upheaval level to 88% in the Brazilian Amazon forest, where both flora and fauna gets exploited leading to certain annihilation.

            Coming to the tangible facts of human’s concern (if they think they are!) , each year 1 million people die for contaminated after, 4,000 people die in Yemen only in the water generated fights ; 844 million people still lack basic water needs, such as drinking and sanitation. 2.3 billion People live without an access to proper sanitation leading to open defecation, which ultimately leads to pollution of natural resources and causing numerous human diseases. Approx. 800 children die each year of Diarrhea. The massive burden balls upon the shoulders of the women and girls around the glob who spends about 200 million hours per year for hauling the water.

            Dumping of non-decomposable wastes, human wastes, industrial effluents have chocked the rivers beyond their carrying capacity, leading to an ultimate and evitable death without a noticeable cremation of them.

            Finding the blue in Indian picture-

                      With the second largest country globally from population perspective, with approximate more then 1.3 billion people the need of water is also high in India as compared to any other countries in the world. India  alone sucks 251 bcm of water each year which is for more then the requirement of both USA and China added. Still over 600 million of people in Indian are affected by a harsh water scarcity. Taking statistics into consideration that India has only 4% of global water, still with a large number of rivers flowing through each state, which are polluted to their threshold can not be taken as a feasible answer.

            More then 90% of ground water is used in irrigation and only 24 billion cubic meters of water is used to drink, where  85% is groundwater. Keeping the scarcity apart from the biggest slums of Maharashtra such as Dharavi to the remotest villages like Telengana’s Nalagonda; people are suffering water related diseases including flourosis, diarrhea to an alarming level nearly 2,00,000 people die every year in India alone due to such cases. After the greatly admired Green Revolution with startling production of vegetables and crops; simultaneously exploited nature to its brink. The adverse affects can now be seen Punjab, once emerged as the  highest food supplier of this country now transformed into the abode of highest cancer patients due pesticide induced cell mutation. The scenario is so grave and deteriorated that one train is named as Cancer Train carrying cancer patients from Punjab to Rajasthan for their treatment.

Day zero and the day tomorrow-

            Recent reports of NITI Ayog , a think tank of Indian Government states that by 2025,  21 cities of India will dry out and 70% of water being used now is contaminated already.

            The word ‘Day Zero’ was coined in Cape Town in 2018 as the water level decreased to the level 7. By ‘Day Zero’ they meant the day when there will be not a single drop of water on earth left.

            Observe attentively and you will find that 90% of natural disasters are water related. Either it be drought, flood or cyclone the root cause somewhere is always water. Some says, the next world war will not occur because of any issues but will be because of natural resources and most probably it could be because of water scarcity.

            In June 2019, 65% of all reservoirs in India reported to go below normal level and 12% were completely dried out. In Chennai 4 reservoirs dried out by completely leading to a mass agony. The monsoon causing rain by both north-east ways and south-west ways has fallen down to 50%. Once highest precipitating place on earth Mawsynram, Shillong has decreased in rainfall  by 40% with a total deforested land by 50-55%.

            The most revered and worshiped rivers of India such as Ganga Yamuna, Cauvery, and Brahmaputra are polluted to their extremes and drying out in a rapid pace causing inter-state conflicts and death. The recent Cauvery conflict is itself an example of such incident. Again the pollution in Yamuna is not only contaminating and degrading the water life but eventually deteriorating the health of people living around by food poisoning and inducing ample of diseases.

            A blue conclusion-

            Though, many efforts by both government and non-governmental organization have been undertaken and executed so far, the scene is still dull and deteriorated. With the increased level of deforestation and dumping of non-decomposable wastes in rivers, high level of pollutants adjoined to rivers from the massive industries, sucking of ground water to meet the need of the highly dense population and concretization of  land stopping the passage of rainwater to be stored inside earth through their pass will definitely lead to an apocalypse.

                      Ways to save the blue--

            There should be a better and expertise think tank in India, in order to save its life and culture and equipped with sustainable thought and scientific instruments simultaneously. Moreover, in the meanwhile, certain measures could be taken in action, they are—

1)   Spreading mass awareness on water management and conservation as well as about the adverse affects of water pollution.

2)    Rain water harvesting by every household to alleviate the pressure on groundwater.

3)   Conservation and storage of water by aiding with technology, such as desalination, use of water seers etc.

4)   Collections of rain water in ground by digging ponds and CCTs around the cultivation field instead of borrow well irrigation.

5)   Better building infrastructures to recycle human and industrial wastes before dumping them in rivers.

6)   Controlling population in a specific region by channeling them to organized and planned areas in order to reduce the harmful strain on the natural resources.

 

With the words of Vedas ‘ mātā bhumi putroaham prithivyāh’ (the earth is my mother and I am her son) we should march forward into the future of green earth with peaceful livelihood by giving respect to the nature and its limited resources. Before being late let us forge our minds with ideas dipped in green living to stop this perilous certain self suicide.

Remember “if the earth is not fertile, the future cravings are futile”.

                                                        

                                                    Writer – Dipankar Bhattacharya