Reclaiming water bodies

Govt agencies need better coordination

The Jal Shakti ministry has done well to put together a comprehensive inventory of the country’s water resources by conducting the first ever census of water bodies. It would serve as a valuable guide for better management of this critical, albeit renewable, natural resource. As pointed out by the ministry, this data has been compiled at a time when the country is gradually progressing towards water scarcity due to increasing population pressure and urbanisation — India supports 18 per cent of the world’s population with only 4 per cent of global water resources — but this contention is not incontrovertible. The truth is that India is not an inherently water-stressed country. The scarcity has been created by its imprudent and inefficient management and use. The country’s average annual water receipt, including rain and snow, is around 120 cm, which is far higher than the global average of 100 cm.

However, the bulk of this water, roughly around 90 cm, is received in the four-month monsoon season (June-September) and flows down wastefully to the seas, eroding precious soil in its wake. Only a fraction of it is stored in the surface water bodies — chiefly lakes, ponds, and man-made reservoirs — or percolates down to underground water aquifers. If a sufficient proportion of the rain is captured and conserved, the country’s water needs can be taken care of comfortably. The report of the water census, even while revealing rampant mismanagement of the available water, also points to the scope for improvement on this front. It shows that though the country has over 2.4 million water bodies — big or small, natural or man-made — nearly 16.3 per cent of them, or roughly one out of every six, are lying in disuse due to low water stock, pollution, encroachment, excess salinity, or other reasons. Still worse, only one in 10 water bodies has water that is fit for drinking or other domestic uses. The rest is usable only for pisciculture, irrigation, or other sundry purposes.

A major disquieting feature highlighted through this exercise is that most water bodies seldom get filled to their capacity. Nearly 60 per cent are usually less than three-fourths full and about 7 per cent hold negligible quantities of water. Besides, about 40,000 water bodies have been illegally encroached upon for human activities, including farming and construction. The root cause of the country’s mismanagement-driven water woes is the fragmentation of the bureaucracies concerning land and water. Usually different agencies are responsible for the upkeep of water bodies and looking after their catchment areas. While the main objectives of various schemes, such as the Atal Bhujal Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Sinchayee Yojana, the Jal Shakti Abhiyan, and the watershed development components under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, are almost similar — rainwater harvesting and its in-situ conservation — these are implemented by different agencies without any mechanism for coordinating their functions.

The much-needed involvement of local communities, or actual stakeholders, in the preservation and use of the water held in water bodies is also missing in most cases. The need for creating mass awareness for conserving, recycling, and efficiently utilising water, and seeking public participation in this task, is absolutely imperative to make the available water go far and rid the country of the man-made water stress.