India's water crisis are real: What's coming with the year 2020?

"Thousands have lived without love, not one without water" -W.h. Auden

India being the world's oldest civilization which grew around the Indus and Ganges is now withering. Post-independence, due importance was given to harnessing the power of water by way of controlling and storing of water through large Dams. That was the need of the hour. However, our cities and towns have subsequently grown without planning for water need vs water availability. As many as one billion people today in India live in areas of physical water scarcity, of which 600 million are in areas of high to extreme water stress. In 1951, the per capita water availability was about 5177 m3. This has now reduced to about 1400 m3 now (Source: Water Resources Division, TERI).

What we are calling a seasonal drought, is in fact, a full-blown water crisis, accentuated by poor management of resources, lack of government attention, increased privatization, industrial and human waste and corruption. Recently, a number of events have shaken up the high-profile political circles. The flood situation in Mumbai, severe water scarcity in Shimla, Chennai and Bengaluru, and the release of the Composite Water Management Index by the NITI Aayog have all put ‘water’ on the front page of many newspaper and websites.

The index prepared by the NITI Aayog claims that, by 2020, as many as 21 major cities of India will run out of the water and face ‘day zero’—a term that got popular after the major water crisis in Cape Town in South Africa.

According to an another Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) report released by the Niti Aayog in 2018, 21 major cities (Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and others) are racing to reach zero groundwater levels by 2020, affecting access for 100 million people. However, 12 per cent of India’s population is already living the 'Day Zero' scenario, thanks to excessive groundwater pumping, an inefficient and wasteful water management system and years of deficient rains. The CWMI report also states that by 2030, the country's water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual six per cent loss in the country's GDP. If the present situation continues, there will be a 6 percent loss to the country’s GDP by 2050. The combination of rapidly declining groundwater levels and limited policy action is likely to be a significant food security risk for the country, says the report.

Water is a top priority, the BJP said in its manifesto ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections. So, as it stormed back to power on 23 May, the Modi 2.0 government while renaming the water resources ministry as Jal Shakti Mantralaya (a new nomenclature that clubs Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation) promised that it would ensure potable, piped drinking water to every home by 2024. On 5 June, the BJP’s official handle tweeted that the PM had fulfilled the promise of creating the Jal Shakti ministry. The target, the tweet read, is to provide drinking water to every household by 2024, link the rivers, and improve irrigation to farms. The question is, How?
Providing water for drinking and irrigation is the responsibility of the state, so unless water becomes a union subject, these plans will remain mere plans.

https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/most-mps-remained-absent-when-rajya-sabha-discussed-country-s-water-crisis-shows-viral-image-370233.html

One of the recent incidents came across while the country is experiencing one of its worst water crisis, those who are at the helm of the affairs are nowhere to be seen. A photo shared by a Twitter handle ‘Maadhyam’ shows how scarcely the Rajya Sabha was occupied when a debate on water crisis was taking place on June 26.

The photo of the number of members of parliament present while the debate is going on shows how non-serious the lawmakers are at a time when the country is going through severe water crisis and people are fleeing homes in search of water, as groundwater depletes and taps run dry.

Speaking on the crisis, water conservationist and environmentalist, The Waterman of India and Magsaysay award-winner, Rajendra Singh, has repeatedly warned that interlinking of rivers as in the BJP’s 2019 election manifesto, is a bad idea. In September 2017, addressing a press conference in Vijayawada, Singh said,

“Governments should work not to interlink the rivers, but to link the hearts and minds of the people with the rivers. Only then would the rivers become healthy. A river is not like a road. It has its own rights."

 Rajendra Singh also added, 

“This is the most severe crisis in the history of the country. Earlier, there used to be a crisis of food and other things, but today, we are struggling for water. As many as 256 districts in 17 states are in the red zone."

He added,

“We humans are so focused towards development that we have not even given rivers a right to flow. Water bodies such as lakes, ponds and tanks have never been on the radar of policymakers. These water bodies had a role in recharging groundwater and in preventing floods by absorbing excess rainwater. Earlier, there were 30 lakh such water bodies across the country, while today, there are just 10 lakh of them. In Delhi alone, 800 such bodies existed, and today, the number is 380 and that too, just on paper. We have encroached on them to construct buildings, bus stops, etc. Floods and droughts are inevitable if this continues.”

Speaking on how sowing patterns have worsened matters, Rajendra Singh said, 

"Earlier, farmers would sow crops when it rained. But now, with the uncertain monsoons, everything from the sowing of crops to irrigating the land, is done with groundwater.Producing food with groundwater will hit the country in the long run.” 

                                                                                                     Sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik spreads awareness through his sand art  

How are we wasting water every day and why should we stop immediately? 

•  The bathroom singing water waster 
  Showering for even five minutes can consume up to 37 litres of water. While you can use low-flow showers, or just fill up a bucket to serve the same purpose and cut down on your water consumption, you choose to be a bathroom singer who bathes under it in luxury.

• The Sunday morning cleaning spree 
  A Sunday morning calls for cleaning the lawn, backyard, porch, basement or staircase-- doesn't it? So you draw out the hose pipe and start flooding the area in the high hopes that your mom would be proud. No, she wouldn't. Instead, make her proud by sweeping the same areas instead of wasting up to 570 litres of water.

• The sleepy brushing session 
  Brushing your teeth is probably the most common occurrence in your life. Be considerate to not waste that 15 litres of precious water by letting the water run the whole time you're brushing and secretly checking your sleepy face out. It isn't that difficult to close the tap when you don't need to rinse your mouth.

• 18 litres for every toilet visit
  Flushing your toilet every time you use it means flushing up to 18 litres of water per flush, which means about a 300 litres a week. Let us make this simpler: if it's just urine, half-flush your toilet or use a small amount of bucket water to replace the flush. Also, your flush is a cranky little thing that leaks up to 3500 litres of water into the toilet every month. Don't ignore a leaky toilet. Fix it.

• Keeping the kitchen tap open for 'cleaner' veggies
  Washing your daily dose of fruits and vegetables in running water will not get them any cleaner than washing them in a pan filled with water. If you're obsessed with hygiene, and only feel better when you wash them under running water, then at least collect that water and use it to water your plants. Cooking also uses a lot of water, especially when you boil or steam vegetables. Reuse that water when making a curry or soup. You'll even get valuable nutrients while saving water.

• Playing Holi the filmy style
  The fact that you even have these provisions of celebrating these festivals makes you a luxuriously rich human being, with half the world running out of the scarce life source. Hold on to it as much as you can, teach toddlers not to splash around with water meaninglessly, tell them that isn't the idea of fun, educate them, and yourselves about the shortage, and understand that you have a lot of other things to play with than water.
• 2.1 billion people live without safe water at home.
• One in four primary schools has no drinking water service, with pupils using unprotected sources or going thirsty.
• More than 700 children under five years of age die every day from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation.
• Globally, 80 per cent of the people who have to use unsafe and unprotected water sources live in rural areas.
• Women and girls are responsible for water collection in eight out of ten households with water off-premises.
• For the 68.5 million people who have been forced to flee their homes, accessing safe water services is highly problematic.
• Around 159 million people collect their drinking water from surface water, such as ponds and streams.
• Around four billion people, nearly two-thirds of the world's population, experience severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year.
• Over 800 women die every day from complications in pregnancy and childbirth.
• 700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030.
   
  Fixing India’s water crisis will need saner policies, meticulous strategy and a massive amount of public participation. Besides this, there is a need to generate awareness among the common masses about the current condition of water scarcity in the country. The common man holds a lot of power and, in many cases, it has been seen that people have taken up the matter in their own hands and changed the overall scenario with the help of social media and that too without any external help from any government agency. To solve the problem of water scarcity in India, we have to overcome the diversification in our own motives and stand up as a united front.