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A harvest of ideas
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At a recent workshop, several ideas to help conserve rain water, including the "Chennai Statement", were mooted
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The Chennai Statement, read out at the end of the two-day meet at the National Workshop on Water Resources and Water Quality Management for Sustainable Drinking Water Supply on November 16-17, sounded more like a U.N. declaration.
The TWAD Board managing director, Mr Deenabandhu, said that the Statement will be a benchmark for future declarations on our nation's water resource management. But what is its implication in light of the recommendations made at the end of the workshop?
``That the system and source sustainability is the key factor for immediate attention'' is the essence of the Statement. On system sustainability, the Statement says that the index of a community's involvement is its ``willingness to participate in the capital cost of the schemes'' and that the community is to be the primary stakeholder of these. But it qualifies the involvement when it says that ``It is however recognised that partial contribution of full operation and maintenance cost sharing by the users can make the system sustainable.'' Which implies that the users will have to share a part of the cost, and such a sharing will make the system sustainable.
The statements seem to indicate a blind faith in the users' rationality. It is obvious that the schemes will be so capital intensive that no user or a group of users can shoulder the entire investment burden.
To ensure community participation and system sustainability, ``house service connection should form part of rural water supply schemes, and levels of water supply should also be increased from the present norms of 40 lpcd to 70 lpcd (litres per capita per day).''
You will agree that providing connections in rural areas and increasing the daily supply cannot rule out indifference. It will only make the rural communities more dependent on pipeline water.
The resolution — ``Village level capacity building for the skills required for the successful operation and maintenance scheme has to be developed''— apparently makes sense, because for effective sustainability, the village-level democratic set-up — gram panchayats — must be made accountable.
The reality that needs to be borne in mind is, these democratic village-level units are basically power centres. And the distribution of power is heavily skewed in favour of some.
Assuming that the system becomes sustainable, what does the Chennai Statement say about resource sustainability?
``Recharge/rain water harvesting structures must be constructed in and around the water supply source and head works'' implies that RWH structures could be, but need not be, built elsewhere. Ground aquifers are not localised to feed only those wells, which form a part of the water supply chain. They are widespread but their contours, structures and recharge rate (or stock replenishing rate) still baffle geologists, if one goes by the papers presented at the workshop. Therefore RWH structures are needed throughout the State.
``Using remote sensing techniques, the potential recharge zones can be identified'' is a crucial observation made at the workshop. Identifying the zones would help focus public expense on RWH and minimise pecuniary waste in sinking percolation pits and recharge wells blindly.
The Statement highlights two imperative legislations.
One is to prevent exploitation of ground water and the other, to prevent quarrying of sand from river beds. It is silent about the need to have a law to compel people to use and conserve rain water.
There is a subtle recognition that people may not prevent contaminating drinking water sources. To handle this contingency, the Statement highlights the need ``to relax norms and providing appropriate funding for providing safe drinking water to areas which have been afflicted with quality problems on a priority basis.''
The Statement claims that ``... the health and quality of life improvement for the nation's human resource is possible through provision of safe drinking water to all''.
What about other factors which influence health, labour productivity and the quality of life? To highlight water alone, at the cost of other factors, is a partial equilibrium view at its classical best.
What could have made more sense is if the Statement said ``... the prevention of drinking water borne diseases for the nation's human resource is possible through provision of safe drinking water to all.''
In addition to the Statement, the 32-point set of Recommendations too does not provide a framework to support the pro-active community approach that it espouses. You need well-tuned sub-systems to ensure that the main system works. You need to address the issues of hunger, inequality in resource distribution, heavily skewed ability to pay for facilities, among other crucial factors.
What will work is not just urging people to allow their good sense to prevail, but implementing laws that will make them do what needs to be done. If three days' labour is needed to implement RWH structures in an existing building, and every plot in Chennai is assumed to have a building, about 5380 units of labour will be needed to instal RWH system on all the 3.23 lakh plots in Chennai within six months. It is presumed that the law, which is yet to be framed, will allow both industrial and household water consumers six months to instal RWH structures, after which punitive action will be taken against defaulters.
Simple calculations will show that if you increase the number of hands (masons, helpers etc.) per labour unit, far less units of labour will be needed. The success of the law (or ordinance) will depend not only on its tightly defined sections but also, and critically, on trained labour.
Masons and their assistants should be trained to instal RWH structures quickly and efficiently. Given the massive number of educated jobless youth in Tamil Nadu (and other States), it should not be impossible for the Government or RWH experts to organise programmes to teach the basics of masonry and how to set up RWH structures for different soil profiles.
The issue now is, a law is needed quickly which only a State or Union Law Minister can frame. But elected representatives of the people are usually driven by a strong survival instinct. It is, therefore, more likely that the mooted system of change — to conserve rainwater — will be whittled down to a level where it may not work.
The result? Lakhs spent in hosting the recent workshop will have gone, like many such expenses, down the drain. Or shall we say storm water drains?
GOUTAM GHOSH
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