Water crisis looms over India

Major metros like Delhi and Mumbai face huge water and environmental crises as infrastructure tries to keep pace with the increasing population, says a new study of 71 Indian cities.

Updated on: Feb 21, 2012, 07:45:10 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi New Delhi

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Major metros like Delhi and Mumbai face huge water and environmental crises as infrastructure tries to keep pace with the increasing population, says a new study of 71 Indian cities.

The report, Excreta Matter, prepared by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), comes at a time when India is urbanising at the highest rate in the world and half of all Indians are expected to be living in cities by 2050.

"If we do not get the arithmetic of water waste right, it will drown us in its own excreta," said Sunita Narain, CSE's director general.

The study presents the dirty picture of Indian cities' capacity to treat less than half the sewage they generate. Moreover, the dirty sewage generated flows into rivers like Yamuna in Delhi, Mithi in Mumbai and wetlands in east Kolkata. Even a modern city like Bangalore is able to treat just 30% of its sewage.

What is worse, the treated sewage is not even utilised for non-food or non-bathing purposes. "Most cities don't have water management plans," the report says.

The study also points out another major flaw - water loss during distribution. Over 35% of water in Delhi and about 30% in Mumbai is lost because of leakages, the report says.

Delhi extracts around 12% of its supply of 1,824 million litres per day (MLD) from the ground but fails to replenish the same amount by way of water harvesting. The availability of water in certain regions is around 63 metres below the ground.

Even though the capital's population has increased by 50% since 1994, the increase in water connections is just 3%, the report says, indicating that the Delhi Jal Board has failed to augment water supply in the city.

Mumbai fares no better. Residents of high-rises receive about 220 litres per capita per day whereas those in slums get less than 40 litres. With its population estimated to be 15 million in 2011, it needs about 1,300 MLD to meet the demand.

Kolkata is slightly better than the two in meeting its water requirement but may fall in the same trap if its sewage treatment capacity is not increased. From a water-surplus city, Kolkata is turning into a water-deficient city.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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