The Hindu : India likely to become water-stressed by 2025

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 17, 2003

National

National

India likely to become water-stressed by 2025

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 16. India will be on the list of water-stressed countries by the year 2025 when nearly half the world population will experience water shortage. Today, nearly 1.2 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water.

The stress on water resources is the result of a multitude of factors such as rapidly rising population and changing lifestyles that have increased the need for freshwater and intense competition among agriculture, industry and the domestic sector that is pushing the groundwater table deeper. Nearly 40 per cent of India's urban population, which is below the poverty line, has no access to water. The scenario in rural India is no better. In 1985, there were 750 villages without water resources, with the number increasing to 65,000 villages in 1996.

But these figures of fast depleting water table have another story to tell. It has changed the lifestyle of the villages. Researchers at The Energy and Resources Institute, with funding from the United Nations Population Fund, tried to understand the linkages between population and water by carrying out a survey at the national and village levels to ascertain the impact of population growth on water resources and that of availability of water and water quality on the life of the people, particularly women and children.

The study conducted in 350 households in 20 villages in the districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Solan, Raichur and Bikaner threw up some interesting facts. In all the villages surveyed, water scarcity was a common problem but the perceptions were different. For some areas in Bikaner and Raichur, water shortage meant shortage even for drinking and in Solan, the problem connoted shortage for irrigation purposes.

For instance, of the villages surveyed in Bikaner, there were cases of households with 5-6 members managing with just 10 litres of water a day while in the villages of Solan, drinking water did not appear to be a problem, but water for irrigation was an immediate requirement. On the other hand, the villages surveyed in Thiruvananthapuram did not face water scarcity except in summer months when few households in coastal villages experienced the problem of salt-water mixing with the water in wells.

In all the villages surveyed, it appeared that there was considerable effort for collecting water for drinking and other household uses. The stress varied from region to region depending on water resources, waiting time and number of trips required. In all of the villages surveyed in Raichur, Solan and Bikaner, the burden of water collection was on women and children (mostly girls), who spent several hours every day on the activity.

Most women respondents complained of frequent backaches as they had to carry heavy pots of water. In Raichur, the villagers also felt they were unable to send their children to school as they were required for household chores, including collecting water. In the villages of Bikaner, a few relatively better-off households and several of those belonging to the Rajput community (where women were not allowed to go out) spent as much as one-fourth of their income on hiring carts for carrying water and investing close to six-months' income in maintaining storage facilities.

Diarrhoea was a frequent problem in all villages surveyed in Raichur, Solan and Bikaner though the villagers did not perceive it as primarily a water-related problem. Group discussion also indicated that there were conflicts over water in some of the villages in Solan and Bikaner. Findings from the field surveys indicated the vicious circular linkages between poverty and environmental degradation.

While the poor were most vulnerable to water-related stress, income and wealth were also contributing factors. In some villages of Bikaner, low caste women said they had to wait for many hours at the water source for a sympathetic woman of higher caste to come and fill their pots.

The study also indicated that the government-provided water sources were few. Water availability was restricted by inadequate and erratic power supply in the villages of Bikaner and Raichur districts where power was reported for only 3-4 hours a day, against the required 8 hours. Government schemes were also marred by poor maintenance and poor sanitation, the study revealed.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National