SYSTEMATIC EFFORTS CAN HELP IN UNIVERSAL WATER SUPPLY BY 2030

Systematic efforts canhelpachieve the goal of universal water supply by 2030

At Son bar di village, in Maharashtra’ s Ya vat mal district, irrigationtanks, meanttobeused by villagers in summer, are already running dry. In the past few years, fetching water has become a full-time occupation for the village rs .“It is only March and water shortages have already begun here ,” said Mans ur K ho ra si, who iswithDilasa, anon-government organisation (NGO) workingto rev ive traditional watershed management and rain water harvesting techniques in Vida rb ha.

K ho ra si added ,“Clean drinking water is a pipe dream for many here .” Even as World Water Day is observed on Wednesday, Khorasi estimated at least 50 percent of Ya vat mal is going to be affected by drought this summer.

Ya vat mali snot an isolated case. India, thefastest-growing bigeconomy, is at the bottom in a recent ranking of countries with access to drinking water, published byWaterAid, aglobaladvocacy group on water and sanitation. According to the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), 70,992 people in rural areas do not have access to clean water. The official GroundWater Resources Assessment says more than a sixth of India’ s groundwater supply is being over used. This dismal picture is at odds with the NRDWP’s ambitious goal of providing piped water to at least 90 percent of rural households by 2022, and universal availability by 2030. Experts believe a systematic approach and a concerted effort by the states( water is a state subject) can help achieve this goal.

Safe Water Network’ s( SW N’ s) Country Director R av indra Sew ak said the goal of supplying water to every household by 2030 can be hastened by facilitating more public and private partnerships.

It si J al station project has provided over a quarter of a million people with daily access to safe watersince2008, andisagood case. It provides 20 lit res of drinking water for ~5 in ATM-style dispensing stations in some of the most a rid district sin Te lang ana and UttarPradesh. Rural entrepreneurs are trained to operate these stations; they earn up to ~9,000 per month, investing in all the fixed assets. SWN put sin the filtration technology, training, technical assistance and continuous monitoring. Each station costs less than ~2 million to setup and services 300-350 households. Another example is of Am rita University’ s J iv a mr it am, a modular water filtration system that uses activated carbon filters and ultraviolet radiation to render water safe for drinking. It is currently being tested at nine places in Kerala, and can be adapted to rid water of different, region-specific contaminants. Second— most topical since the theme of World WaterDay, 2018, is Nature for water —is the need to sharp en the focus on watershed management, rain water harvesting, and raising groundwater levels. InRajasthan’s Karaulidistrict, oneofthe100most backward ,‘ Water Man’ Raj end ra Singh’sNGO, Tarun Bhagat Sangh, is trying to improve the depleted water table and decreased water-absorption capacity of the soil by setting rain water harvesting systems. InYavatmal, Dilasa has installed do ha models— traditional water-harvesting tanks dug inside seasonal riverbeds in 175 villages. Seventy of them no longer need to depend on government watertankers— or, anincreasingly erraticmonsoon. SitaramKoweof Raj a ni village recalled how, six years ago, his well had water at a depthof25feet. InKowe’svillage, an ecological transformation occurred after two do has were constructed on a nearby river bed.

“These tanks have ensured a plentiful water supply through the year ,” he said .“But even more importantly, they have re charged thegroundwater, andtoday, we have water at a depth of 10 feet !”

A comparison of water levels in neighb our ing villages in Ya vat mal —Mangu rd a( where Di las a has installed watershed management systems) and Son bar di( where there are none )— reveals the difference that two years can make. In Sonbardi, water levels have fallen from 1.4 meters in 2016 to 0.2 meters now. InMangurda, waterlevelsin wells have risen from 0.5 meters in2016, when the watershed intervention began, to 1.5 meters. Developing a sustainable supply ofcleanwater, recharging beleaguered aquifers and harnessing rain water are important, but changing how we, as a society, consume water is crucial. For example, in the arid regions of centralIndia, farmerscouldbe inc en ti vised to eschew water guzzling crops such as sugar cane infavourofmulti-cropping, using indigenous and drought-resistant varieties of millets and cotton.

Similarly, in urban households, relianceonwater-guzzling reverse-osmosis filters can be reduced by installing community or resident welfare association-owned water treatment systems.