India’s growing water crisis

India is currently caught in serious water crisis. Most parts of the country are facing a severe shortage of water. Rivers and springs are running dry, the ground-water level is fast going down, rainfall is becoming lesser by the day. In the Northeast, Assam is reeling under severe floods, while in Nagaland, out of about 7,000 natural springs on which the state’s communities depend for their daily water requirements, as many as 4,500 have dried up. In Meghalaya, the abode of the clouds, Mawsynram and Cherrapunji have been receiving above normal rainfall, while the Umiam reservoir is so full of water that the authorities are contemplating releasing a portion of it for ensuring safety of the dam. In Arunachal Pradesh, NPHC’s Lower Subansiri dam is reportedly overflowing. Massive flow of water from Bhutan has already caused havoc in the lower Assam districts. In Chennai, citizens are now entirely dependent on water tanker trucks for supply of water, while Bengaluru is faced with a severe water crisis in the next couple of years. Rampant extraction of groundwater, with mechanism in place to monitor and regulate it, has led Bangalore’s water table to plunge to depths of nearly 1,000 feet. Scientists have predicted that Punjab, once the most dependable granary of the country, will witness total drying up of ground-water by 2039; the reason being over-exploitation of ground-water for irrigation. No wonder, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday suggested that all-party meetings, under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, should be convened soon to hammer out a consensus and formulate a national strategy for tackling the deteriorating water situation in the country. Singh has also described water crisis as a ‘national problem’ in order to justify his claim that it should be discussed and resolved at the ‘national’ level. Here comes the issue of floods in Assam and the Northeast. While repeated pleas by Assam to declare floods as a ‘national problem’ has been turned down by successive governments, it is the opportune moment for chief ministers of all the flood-affected states to join hands and constitute a group to press the Centre for declaring floods as a ‘national problem’ so that it could be discussed and resolved at the ‘national’ level. On Monday, two Rajya Sabha members, one from the BJP and the other from AIADMK, raised the issue of river-linking to deal with the disparities in availability of water across the country. The government, scientists and environmentalists in Assam, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh should put their heads together to examine the scope of inter-linking some rivers of the Northeastern region to other rivers in mainland India. The objective should be two-fold, (i) reducing the level of floods in Assam during the monsoon months, and (ii) providing water to mainland India which has been facing a severe shortage of water. For sometime, those who do not have any expertise on water and environment should keep their mouths shut and allow the experts to work out the technicalities. People of Assam, including leaders of the numerous organizations who create a lot of noise over every issue including floods, but have never ever removed even one piece of polythene from a drain or a river, should understand that a solution to the flood problem has to be found out. And, the sooner the better.