E-Paper
Parched Delhi's water woes
Why Delhi? Simply because we wanted to make the surfer relate to the issue by making him/her the focus of our attention. Second, we wanted to examine why even after 50 years of independence our cities aren't equipped to handle such basic issues. In Delhi water table has dipped to an alarming 109 feet below the ground!
Why did we zero in on Delhi to commence our project?
The vastness of a subject like water prompted us to toggle our brains more. The obvious question was how to begin? We had drawn up an extensive schedule on what points to touch upon. Scarcity, pollution, floods, drought..... list didn't seem to end. But the question remained.
Finally we decided to begin by looking at the water problems in the urban centres starting with Delhi. Now, this seemed self-defeating in many ways. Why Delhi when the hinterland is so badly hit?
It is a known fact, that developmental policies of the country are lopsided. Even as large sections of India's one billion population stay in the rural areas, the larger focus is on the city dweller. Villages across the country lack basic facilities such as educational/skill enhancement institutions, health care centres, etc. Water is just one of them.
Why then Delhi?
Simply because we wanted to make the surfer relate to the issue by making him/her the focus of our attention. Confusing? Not really. We wanted to drive home the point that water is no longer merely a state issue. If we think it happens to someone else and not me, we are sadly mistaken. The sceptre of water scarcity is akin to an approaching monster - either one learnt to tackle it or else it will engulp us. Our presumption was based on the logic that surfers constitute the informed netizens.
Second, we attempted understanding the entire issue applying the following logic: If after five decades of independence the nation's capital goes through throes of water scarcity, how could we even assume that we had made any advancements?
