THE fact that water reservoirs across India have reported an average storage of as low as 28%, should become a matter of great national concern. The Central Water Commission (CWC) has expressed concern over the decline of national reservoir storage, and has stressed also that southern States of India -- Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu -- form the worst hit area of the country in this regard with water storage having dipped to as low as 16%. But these statistical details are also indicative of the sin we -- as the larger Indian society -- have been committing for decades on end.

 

Some natural phenomena may be cited as the causes of such a dip in national water storage, but more factually, this needs to be traced back to the terrible neglect of water management across the country particularly during the British rule and after Independence. Water was one natural resource that was taken for granted by the British rulers who allowed countless numbers -- possibly in lakhs -- of water bodies to fall on bad days. And not to lag behind, the Indian rulers after 1947 also followed the same doctrine of neglect of water as a resource. The current condition is the outcome of that terrible neglect of nearly two centuries. Various experts, researchers and activists as well as Government agencies have been cautioning the larger Indian society about the impending water shortage in the country. Yet, for reasons never explained by anybody, the Government and the society have continued to ignore the caution and allowed the national water resource management to go off track for decades on end.

 

Take any city for example -- New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Raipur ... -- and mountains of evidence would emerge demonstrating how water as a natural and national resource has been neglected (as if deliberately)! This is the story everywhere -- story of neglect, story of apathy, story of a resolute ‘no’ to following scientific method of water and water-resource management. Add to this story the dimension of the neglect of overall green cover besides the forests, and the picture gets complete and dirtier. Old records suggest that India was a blessed country in terms of water resource management. Ancient systems of water management had proved to be very useful since those practices were planned in complete accordance with the ecological contours and needs. In areas as dry as Rajasthan, royalties as well as the society had evolved a people-oriented system of water resource management that helped the generally water-deficit regions survive terrible summers. In other words, thanks to a fine water-management system, Rajasthan never faced a serious famine for centuries.

 

That old wisdom created wonderful systems that ensured most optimal usage of water as a common resource. The British rulers threw that wisdom out of the window -- and imposed their own regulations that destroyed old systems that, in turn, led to the current condition of shortages in national water storage. The rulers of Independent India, too, followed their British predecessors to the hilt. Unless this system is turned upside down and a logical and scientific method adopted, India cannot hope to improve its national water reservoir. This is a wake up call that we can hardly afford to ignore.