Nothing short of a complete overhaul or rethinking the approach towards water bodies is needed if India were to fight its water crisis without paying too heavy price.
- Prasanna Mohanty
- New Delhi
- June 28, 2019
- UPDATED: June 28, 2019 22:30 IST
HIGHLIGHTS
- Water bodies are important to recharge groundwater and absorb excess rain to prevent flooding
- Water bodies in India are fast disappearing triggering drought situations and water shortage
- The significance of restoring or reviving water bodies cannot be overemphasised
For far too long the central and state governments have paid lip service to the one water resource that may provide the maximum dividend.
While groundwater resources and rivers have attracted sufficient attention of policy makers in India, as India fights water crisis, water bodies which are the other key source of water have slipped under their radar.
This is surprising, given the key role water bodies -- lakes, ponds/tanks, baolis and other such natural or man-made structures -- have played in supply of drinking water, other domestic needs and agriculture through the ages.
These water bodies are also important for their potential to recharge groundwater and absorb excess rain to prevent urban flooding.
Encroachment of water bodies has been identified as a "major cause" of flash floods in Mumbai (2005), Uttarakhand (2013), Jammu and Kashmir (2014) and Chennai (2015) in the past one-and-half decades.
Their revival and better management assume even more significance if the Niti Aayog's warning is to be taken seriously: Groundwater levels in 21 major cities, including Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, will dry up completely by 2020 (next year), affecting 100 million people.
Everyday experiences and studies have shown that more and more water bodies are disappearing from the urban and rural landscapes due to uncontrolled urbanisation leading to their encroachment for construction activities; dumping of sewage, industrial waste water and construction debris and a shift from community-based water-use system to individual-oriented groundwater dependent system, etc.
FAST DISAPPEARING WATER BODIES
The apathy towards water bodies is so stark that little is known about their numbers or the state of their use, disuse or abuse either by the Centre or states.
The only relevant source of information on water bodies is the minor irrigation (MI) census.
According to the 4th MI census, carried out during 2006-2007, there were 5,23,816 water bodies - declining by 32,785 from 5,56,601 water bodies identified during the 3rd MI census of 2000-2001.
Of these 5,23,816 water bodies, 80,128 (or 15 per cent) were found "not in use" any more.
Most such water bodies in disuse were found in Karnataka (51 per cent of its total water bodies), Rajasthan (40 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (32 per cent), Tamil Nadu (30 per cent), Uttarkhand (29 per cent) and Gujarat (23 per cent).
The MI census, however, does not provide a comprehensive picture because it is limited to only those water bodies which are in rural areas and used for irrigation. Since then, the 5th MI census has been carried out in 2013-14, but data relating to water bodies have not been released yet.
The other issue with the MI census is that beyond just the numbers of total water bodies in each state and those in use or not in use, no specific information is collected about the reason for disuse, the extent of damage, etc in absence of which no remedial measures can be planned or executed.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources, which looked into the issue and submitted two reports in 2016 and 2017, wanted such details at the earliest - for both urban and rural areas.
While the state governments (water is a state subject) did not respond to requests, the central government said it would only be able to draw a comprehensive picture in the 6th MI census to be carried out in 2019-20.
Going by the fact that the 2006-2007 MI census data relating to water bodies was made available only in 2016-17, this would be a long-drawn affair.
Unhappy at such a state of affairs, the Parliamentary panel pressed for an urgent and exclusive census on water bodies saying that postponing collection of basic information would only delay the process of understanding the gravity of the problem (condition and extent of damage and cause of disuse) and taking remedial measures. But it was not heeded.
It said it was "distressed" that the water resources ministry had made "no efforts" to keep abreast of the ground realities in spite of the importance of water bodies on its own in all these years.
India does have a database on all water bodies (both urban and rural) created by satellite mapping (India-Water Resources Information System or WRIS) but as the 2017 Parliamentary panel report pointed out, the details like the numbers and state of use or disuse of water bodies are "not readily available in the database", and hence, is of little value for planning or corrective actions.
REPURPOSING REPAIR, RENOVATION AND RESTORATION SCHEME
Realising the seriousness of problem confronting water bodies, the Centre had launched the Repair, Renovation and Restoration (RRR) of Water Bodies' scheme in 2005 with the objectives of comprehensive improvement and restoration of traditional water bodies, including increasing tank storage capacity, ground water recharge, increased availability of drinking water, improvement of catchment areas of tank commands, etc.
When the Parliamentary panel was expressing its displeasure, it was reviewing performance of this scheme and found it lackadaisical and distressing.
The significance of restoring or reviving water bodies cannot be overemphasised.
The United Nation's (UN) World Water Development Report of 2018 harks back to the traditional nature-based solution to address water crisis.
It particularly highlights two examples.
One is the good old experiment by India's waterman Rajendra Singh in Rajasthan which restored water resources in Alwar district through construction of small-scale water harvesting structures. This brought water back to 1,000 drought-hit villages, revived five rivers which had gone dry, increased farm productivity by 20 to 80 per cent, increased forest cover by 33 per cent and also brought back antelopes and leopards.
The other is from Jordan where an experiment in reviving traditional land management system, called 'Hima'- which basically consisted of setting land aside to allow for the land to naturally regenerate itself - that led to increase in economic growth (through cultivation of indigenous plants of economic value) and conservation of natural resources in the Zarqa river basin. It has now become Jordan's national policy.
There are government schemes promoting and assisting such traditional water management, but the one scheme about water bodies (RRR scheme) does not. Nor does it seem to care.
The Parliamentary panel was keen that the RRR scheme be expanded to include creation of new water bodies to compensate for the lost ones.
States like Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Tripura and Odisha said they had built new tanks, check dams, etc under programmes such as MGNREGA to increase the number of water bodies. But the water resources ministry dismissed the panel's suggestion.
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