Capital’s Water Crisis

Source: Govt of India, Press Information Bureau

http://pib.nic.in/feature/feyr2000/fmay2000/f250520001.html

Capital’s Water Crisis

India’s capital, New Delhi, has also been experiencing a severe water crisis for the last decade or so. The city originally located between the Ridge and the river Yamuna, has now sprawled in all directions, without taking into account its hydrological and hydro-geological aspects . The capital’s current water requirement is 900 MCD (million gallons daily) and the projected demand in 2001 is 1000 MCD. The proposed solution to meet this growing demand-supply gap is the construction of dams in the high Himalayas. In the absence of these dams the demand-supply gap has been met by unregulated and incredulously unsustainable exploitation of the groundwater reserves, thereby leading to an alarming decline in the ground water table. The government of NCT Delhi entrusted INTACH ( The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage), an NGO, with the task of preparing a ‘Blueprint for Water Augmentation’ in Delhi. The INTACH report has stressed on advanced techniques of water harvesting for increasing Delhi’s water supply.

According to the INTACH study, rainwater runoff and flood discharges constitute a major resource to be conserved. The usage of monsoon waters during the rainy season needs to be dispersed over the year. Satellite imagery, field survey, historical data, old Survey of India maps as well as hydro-geological mapping carried out by the Central Ground Water Board(CGWB) were used to locate several sites for water harvesting in Delhi. It has been proposed to harvest the waters through storage and recharge of storm water channels, off-channel storage for floodwaters, storage in lakes and depressions, flood reservoirs, quarries, historical water bodies, checkdams, paleo-channels, village ponds , rooftop water harvesting and ecoparks. It is estimated that water harvesting and recycling within Delhi would totally eliminate the demand-supply gap by the year 2021. The time has now come to inspire people to take their own initiative for sustainable development which can control poverty caused by droughts and desertification. The Government in conjunction with the NGOs must make all-round efforts to revive the traditional water harvesting systems with people’s participation. As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out ‘If we continue to treat water as a free or cheap resource that can be wasted, not even the best policies and technologies can help’.