Lack of effective policy implementation led to water crisis: Arun Krishnamurthy
But Arun Krishnamurthy, a man in his thirties, foresaw what India will be up against. Nearly 10 years ago he left a promising career in Google to initiate a campaign to clean and revive polluted lakes across India. In 2011, he founded the Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI), headquartered in Chennai, with branches in nine Indian cities
The report by Niti Aayog - the government’s economic think tank - which has come in the midst of one of the biggest water crises that India is facing has predicted a grim future for the country with 21 cities including Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai most likely to run out of groundwater by 2020.
It has served as a wake-up call for many who had, till now, thought that for a country as blessed as India with so many natural resources, calamities and scarcities can never turn into realities.
But Arun Krishnamurthy, a man in his thirties, foresaw what India will be up against. Nearly 10 years ago he left a promising career in Google to initiate a campaign to clean and revive polluted lakes across India. In 2011, he founded the Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI), headquartered in Chennai, with branches in nine Indian cities.
To shed light on India’s water crisis and to understand the way forward, India Review & Analysis spoke to the prestigious Rolex award-winning visionary. Excerpts:
Q. India is facing its biggest water crisis with 21 cities poised to run out of groundwater soon. How did the situation come to this?
A. Unregulated exploitation of groundwater reserves, extremely poor water management in urban centres and lack of water literacy are the collective reasons for this unprecedented water crisis.
Q. Was there policy paralysis in addressing water scarcity?
A. The policy level planning has been ongoing for some time now, both at the federal to state levels. States such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan have been focusing on several policy measures. The lack of effective implementation of designed policy could be ascertained as a primary reason for the crisis.
Q. What steps can be taken now to address the crisis? Is it too late already?
A. Even if it’s too late we cannot give up, as we cannot relocate elsewhere in search of water. Immediate requirements would be to mandate water harvesting across the nation, grey water recycling, complete ban on borewell systems and implementation of the same. Extended community sensitization on water conservation.
Q. You have cleaned 39 lakes and restored 17 countrywide. But public awareness on the need to protect water bodies is low. Can government take steps to address this?
A. There is increasing public interest towards reviving freshwater bodies in their respective neighbourhoods. Similar to ‘Swachh Bharat’ the government should consider initiating a larger ‘Jal Bharath’ campaign to motivate civic society to take up voluntary cleaning, revival and maintenance of freshwater bodies.
Q. Do you think the recently launched water conservation initiative by the central government will be able to deliver?
A. More than will it, I hope it does and it should. We do not have any time left in our war against depleting water resources.
Q. Do you see India adopting sustainable water-use practices?
A. Culturally, India has been in the forefront of water conservation, the innate local knowledge in conservation of water through customized solutions from across the country needs to be revived. India will definitely see through this crisis and has the opportunity to strengthen its grass roots, social modes of water conservation.