Water scarcity in India

Present situation in India :-

• UNESCO’s report, 2018 predicts that India will have intensified water crisis by 2050.
• Atleast 140 districts in India are facing severe water scarcity as of May 2018.
• In India, if a person has no drinking water available within 500 meters, he/she has no access to drinking water. 22% villages in India come under this category.
• According to Central Pollution Control Board, 275 rivers of India are polluted.
• In India, high population is causing the water scarcity situation even more scarier.
• Many people are dying due to water-borne diseases.

Causes :-

• From a long time, we are using water from rivers and lakes beyond it’s ability to replenish. We are using ground water too without any restrictions.
• In many places of India, especially in cities land is covered with concrete. There is no much available place to let the rain water sink into the land. This is the reason there is no ground water in many places that had abundant ground water erstwhile.
• Many industries are polluting rivers by dumping all the chemical and solid wastes into them.
• For religious reasons, many people throw flowers, coins, dead bodies etc into the rivers. This is lessening the depth of rivers and thereby reduces the water holding capacity.

What needs to be done :-

• Soak pits should be made compulsory for all homes and other buildings. This will result in the abundant availability of ground water. Analysts says that even if we store 1/3rd of the rainfall India receives, that water will be enough for agricultural water needs in entire India. India is storing only 6% of rain water that it is receiving.
• In places where there is water shortage, government should encourage farmers to grow crops that require less water instead of water-intensive crops.
• More number of sewage water recycle plants should be established.
• People needs to be encouraged to use rain water harvesting methods and to take small steps to reuse the water, like for example water that was used to clean vegetables can be used to water the plants. These kind of small steps will save a lot of water.
• Those who run industries should take responsibility for the wastes industries are generating. Government should close industries that pollute rivers.
• Many industries require large amounts of water. Government should encourage industries to work towards using water-less technologies.
• There is a need to invest more in the research to transform sea water into usable water.
• Villages and communities should take responsibility for the lakes that belong to their areas, and people need to take care of those water resources and should protect them from being polluted or drying up.

Conclusion :-

India has a good number of rivers, lakes and also gets sufficient rainfall. But the only problem is that there is no proper usage of the resources. When government and people together take serious action, we will not suffer from water scarcity in future.

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