Sustainability

The Government of India has passed a draft notification to bar membrane based systems such as Reverse Osmosis (RO) to be used as domestic purifiers in cities where the tap water is safe according to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms. This is to comply with an order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that proposed a ban on RO in the NCR region.

Karnataka allowed to implement Kalasa-Banduri project

Limca Book of Records recognises UP's Banda for water conservation efforts

Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district has entered the Limca Book of Records for the construction of 2,605 contour trenches and holding 469 jal choupals (village water parliaments) in a single month.

Surrounded by vast expanses of water, the Kuttanad region in Alleppey district, Kerala faces severe drinking water scarcity due to infrastructure failure and civic body inaction.

Non monsoon flows of Indian rivers are declining

Recent evidence shows that monsoon flows in Indian rivers are almost unaffected, but the non-monsoon flows show a declining trend. This has manifested in the form of:

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget announcement on February 1, 2020 made a push for piped rural drinking water supply and promised full coverage of all households by 2024. Last year, the National Rural Drinking Water Mission (NRDWM) was restructured and subsumed into Jal Jeevan Mission.

Government allocates Rs 11,500 crore to Jal Jeevan Mission for 2020-21

In the budget 2020-21, the Finance Ministry has allocated Rs 11,500 crore to the Jal Jeevan Mission for the year for 2020-21.

The funds will be utilised to identify and create comprehensive measures for 100 water-stressed districts in the country.

Common pool resources, popularly known as “commons”, are those resources which are accessible to the whole community or village and to which no individual has exclusive ownership or property rights. Commons have two essential characteristics: non-excludability and high-subtractability. Non-excludability means that it is impossible or very costly to restrict a user from using the resource, and subtractability or “rivalness” means that use of the resource by one user will diminish benefits for other users.

The use of reverse osmosis (RO) purifiers has become a contentious issue, mainly because of the amount of water that is wasted following its use. Last May, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) issued an order to ban RO purifiers in cases where the total dissolved solids in the water source were less than 500 mg/litre.

Climate change impacts are disproportionate and influence lives and livelihoods variedly. One crucial determinant of these disproportionate impacts is gender. Existing social norms determine roles and responsibilities, entitlements and capabilities, thereby influencing the individual perceptions of shocks and susceptibility which vary across gender groups.