Rural Water

A recent report by Shailendra Yashwant for Oxfam India looks at India’s ingenious ways of harvesting, storing and distributing water from the Kuhls in Himachal Pradesh that channel water from Himalayan glaciers, and the Dongs of Assam to the Aghers in Arunachal Pradesh, the Pynes of Bihar.

The last few months have seen much debate and discussion on the fast approaching Day Zero, with claims that taps in 21 major Indian cities will dry up. People in Chennai were compelled to queue up to collect water from tankers this past June. Last year’s NITI Aayog’s report set off alarm bells that most of India’s major cities were likely to face an acute, unprecedented water shortage.

In 2014, the Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) to accelerate efforts in achieving universal sanitation coverage. The issue of access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities also became a major Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-6) when the United Nation set 17 global goals in 2015 under the 2030 Agenda.

While enhanced irrigation coverage has been hailed as an important way to improve agricultural productivity, it continues to lag behind in India and agriculture continues to be rainfed, subject to the vagaries of the monsoon. High groundwater dependence for irrigation has not only led to its depletion and quality deterioration, but has also raised questions about its sustainability in the long run.

While most parts of the country are facing a water crisis, here’s a case from the arid state of Rajasthan, where decentralized initiatives are solving water issues. Dungarpur in southern Rajasthan has exemplified how community participation with local level planning processes are working towards improving rainwater harvesting and recharge of groundwater.

NITI Aayog, the Government of India’s policy think tank, recently released the second edition of the Composite Water Management Index to enable effective water management in Indian states. It warns that the country will lose 6% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2050 because of a water crisis. The annual per capita availability of water is expected to reduce to 1,140 cubic metres by 2050, near to the official water scarcity threshold of 1,000 cubic metres.

Floods are an annual phenomenon in Assam. They are as integral to the state as the Brahmaputra River is, and each monsoon, we are reminded that Assam exists (or is drowning). As I write this piece, Assam is slowly recovering from the first wave of flood this monsoon.

P Sainath has been documenting stories from rural India for over three decades now. He is the founder-editor of People's Archive of Rural India (PARI), a digital archive dedicated to people whose voices and stories don't always find space in mainstream media. Sainath previously covered the rural beat at The Hindu, and his on ground reportage has drawn significant attention to the country’s farmers and the challenges they face.

Vishwanath Srikantaiah, popularly known as the 'Rainman', has been in the news recently for his ambitious project to build one million recharge wells in Bengaluru. Given the dire situation we find ourselves in vis-à-vis water, the initiative could not have come at a better time.