Open Forum
New Delhi, 13 April
2022
Drinking
Water
BIG GAP IN
REACHING GOAL
By
Dhurjati Mukherjee
Several State
governments need to get their act together to ensure that rural households get
what has been envisaged by the Jal Jeevan Mission. The goal to provide Piped
Water Supply (PWS) and Functional Household Tap Connection(FHTC) to this
section by 2024, unfortunately doesn’t seem to on course. According to the report
of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources tabled in Lok Sabha last
month, less that 40 per cent of the target has been achieved so far on both
fronts.
Recall, in August
2019, the Centre in partnership with States had kicked off the JJM after
subsuming erstwhile National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), to make
provision of potable water at the service level of 55 litre per capita per day
(lpcd) to every rural household through tap water connection. However, given the
statistics placed before it, the Committee has expressed dismay over under-utilisation
of funds, which it described as a clear indication of “lack of financial
prudence and fiscal discipline.”
The picture that
emerges is that in large Statessuch as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, less
than 40% of rural households have a FHTC. However, States such asTelangana,
Haryana, Goa, Puducherry, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Dadra & Nagar
Haveli have achieved 100% FHTC, while others like Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and
Gujarat touch 90% household coverage and should ‘meet target soon’.
This apart, only
47.28 per cent of rural households have access to PWS, in the background that over
19 crore (19,27,76,015) rural households are recorded across the country, but only
9,11,37,165 have got this access. Three States –Haryana, Goa, and Telangana,
and three Union Territories, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar
Haveli and Puducherry have access to running water.
Worse, there is
‘under-utilisation’ ofJJM funds, which obviously would ‘deprive targeted
beneficiaries of access to safe/clean potable water at homes.’As per the report, States like Karnataka, Andhra
Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh,
Jharkhand, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have utilised less than 25 per cent of
central allocation.This is in the backdrop of revised estimate of Rs 45,011 crore
for fiscal year 2021-22, the ‘actual expenditure was only Rs 28,238 crore.’
On another front, India
has four per cent of the world’s water resources, but in 2011, it was heading
to be water-stressed. According to the ‘Composite Water Management Index (CWMI)’
released by the Niti Ayog in 2018, 21 cities, including Bangalore, Delhi,
Hyderabad and Chennai, probably would exhaust their groundwater resources in
2021, affecting access for 100 million people. Accordingly, the country was suffering
from the worst water crisis in its history, and almost 600 million of its
population were water-deprived.
India constitutes 16
per cent of the world’s population, but the country has only four per cent of
the world’s freshwater resources. With the changing weather patterns and
recurring droughts, India is water stressed. As many as 256 of 700 districts
have reported ‘critical’ or ‘over-exploited’ groundwater levels, according to
the latest data from the Central Ground Water Board (2017). This means that
fetching water in these districts has become harder as the water table has
fallen.
With around 99
percent of all liquid freshwater on earth, groundwater provides societies with
a huge number of benefits and opportunities. But experts say due to
anthropogenic hazards major water depletion and pollution are now affecting the
life and livelihood of billions of people, specially in Third World countries such
as like India. As such, in the context of growing scarcity, the rich
groundwater which contributes to the regular use of water for domestic use by
the global population can no longer be overlooked.
Groundwater resources
in India come under increasing pressure due to over-reliance and unsustainable
consumption, wells, ponds and tanks dry up which means fetching water in these
districts has become harder as the water table has fallen. This has escalated
the water crisis and placed an even greater burden on women of accessing water.
Such as a rural woman in Rajasthan walks over 2.5 km to reach a water source,
according to a report by the National Commission for Women. Experts believe
that this is an underestimation as women and girls spend a significant
proportion of their time fetching water to meet their basic needs.
The escalation of the
water crisis is further corroborated by the Parliamentary Standing Committee report
which has flagged the fact that as many as 48,969 rural habitations are
affected by water contamination. It has also noted with concern that despite this
situation, the Department of Water Resource, River Development and Ganga
Rejuvenation was ‘silent’ when it came to action that needed to be taken to
ensure clean drinking water reaches houses affected with contaminants.
In the 2021-22
budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated Rs 2,87,000 crore to the
Ministry of Jal Shakti to launch the JJM (Urban) to ensure universal water
supply to all 4,378 towns. What needs to be addressed is the reversal of the
shrinking stock of potable water to supply these homes with water bodies drying
up while most becoming highly contaminated.
Recall that in 2017,
government statistics showed that around 239 million people spread across 152
districts in 21 States were drinking water that contains unacceptable high
levels of arsenic: 65 percent of Assam’s population or about 21 million people,
60 per cent in Bihar and 44 per cent in West Bengal. In terms of absolute
numbers, Uttar Pradesh has the reputation of having the largest number of
people exposed to the risk with over 70 million people consuming the polluted
water.
The World Health
Organization (WHO) has warned that long-term intake of such water leads to
arsenic poisoning or arsenicosis with cancer of bladder, kidney or lung or
diseases of skin -- colour changes and hard patches on palms or soles or blood
vessels of legs and feet. Further evidence indicates possible association
between intake of contaminated water and onset of diabetes, hypertension and
reproductive disorders.
Obviously, the Centre
can’t manage the water crisis alone. So far, the work entailed in JJM
includes joint discussion and finalisation of saturation plan and annual action
plan (AAP) of States/ UTs, regular review of implementation,
workshops/conferences/webinars for capacity building, training, knowledge
sharing, field visits by multi-disciplinary team to provide technical support,
etc. Detailed Operational Guideline for the implementation of JJM; Margdarshika
for Gram Panchayats to provide safe drinking water in rural households and
Guidelines on a special campaign to provide piped water supply in anganwadi centres,
ashramshalas and schools have been shared with States/ UTs, to
facilitate planning and implementation.
Management of water,
requires a measure to work with, and water also needs to be treated as a
life-form resource rather than just a human-centric one. We need to restructure
the Centre-State and local bodies’ relationship with water as a subject and
allow for single-window decision making. More so, as the recently released IPCC
Special Report reveals that the increase in warming levels may need more water
which would become scarcer with every passing year. Involvement and combined efforts
by civil society, private sector, including its foundations, and the public at
large too need to be undertaken.---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)
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