Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Water Crisis” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Water Crisis

“Water, water everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, Water everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink”

Today, in a country where water and it perennial source, the river is worshiped as Mother Goddess”, it has become a subject of crisis.

Water, a tree gift of nature is fast becoming a precious commodity for the common man. This rapidly depleting resource has turned out to be a matter of concern to all of us.

The acute shortage of potable water in many ports of our country during the first summer of the new millennium has made us seriously think and introspect on the potential problem of the future.

The above quote is perfectly drafted to the state in which we are today.

We are surrounded by seas on three sides in the south, a huge ice-covered mountain range in the north—the Himalayas, World’s largest fertile plains with abundant ground water resources, the indusgangetic Brahmaputra plains and countless rivers flowing down to the mighty seas, but still the dependency ratio is a merge what we planned ? We regained our freedom from our colonial rulers in 1947 and the planners under the able guidance of Jawaharlal Nehru had a monumental job in hand. Nehru quoted “dams are the Temples of modern India”. The country had to plan and formulate a policy of managing the vast water resources, which was at its command. Considering the vastness of our rivers and the dream of harvesting a good agriculture produce and blending the upcoming technology with nature, our planners opted for mega investments big dams, many multipurpose projects with huge investments for a country that had just emerged from the clutches of economic drain. Dam building grew to be equated with nation building. The result is that India now boasts of bring the world’s third largest dam builder, with 3,600 dams big and small one aspect, which our planners did not take into consideration was “what are the benefits for the future generations with these mega projects.”

Though these mega projects promised to be saviours capable of quenching the thirst of millions of hectares of land but the associated drawbacks surfaced as the clock ticked drawbacks such as :

• Limited life span of mega projects
• Huge and unbearable investments, once the projects got delayed
• Environmental controversies many projects were planned in areas with rich flare and fauna and these areas had to be inundated to accommodate large body of water.
• Large scale shifting of population.
• Controversies between states over distribution and usage of water. Often the disputes were blown up and politicised by opportune political parties and used as election issues. Unfortunately, many disputes that are more than decades old await solutions.

Likewise many projects which were envisaged as Lifeline of a state soon turned out to become white elephants as they were trapped in the web of endless problems.

Many projects such as upper Krishna project of Karnatkaka, Sardar Sarovar Valley Project of Gujarat, Tehri Project in the hills of Uttarakhand, which were drafted in early 70s, are today the live examples of politics entering the economic arena.

These projects which were originally planned with an investment of just a few hundred crores, have today snowballed to thousand of crores for completion.

The direct victim of all these failures has been the common man. The inability of the dams to feed the targeted population has turned out to be the banme and issue of controversy.

Many dams that were built as joint partnership between the states, which Shara the rivers have used the water management as a tool to settle their scores.

The Krishnaraja Sagar dam built on the Kavery at the exit point of Karnataka into Tamil Nadu has always been an issue of controversy fueling the narrow and parochial sentiments of people on both the sides.

Like this, our water management policy has also taken a beating with the ever-rising demand for potable water.

In the background of all these maladies, a silent killer which has taken its toll is the depleting water tablo in many parts of the country thanks to excessive use of technology of drilling tube wells, in many parts of the country where the benefits of dams could not be reached, people resorted to a easy way out i.e. drilling tubewells and extracting the underground water. In many areas the water table has gone to such a low level that it may take ages to restore the level of the early 50s.

Incidentally India has the second largest irrigated area in the world, but due to the rapid expansion of irrigation with its emphasis on new construction, irrigation performance and the sector’s increasing management needs have not received adequate attention. Here are some eye openers which will certainly make us give a hard and serious look at water management and the crisis :

• Only 36 percent of average rum-off in the river system in the country has been utilised.
• Per Capita availability of water has reduced from about 5277 m3 in the year 1955 to the present level of 1970 m3.
• According to an estimate by central ground water Board, 31 percent of available ground water resources has so for been developed.
• Out of 4272 blocks in the country, ground water resources in near 500 block have been declared as “our exploited or dark i.e. the state of ground water exploitation exceeds the annual replenish able recharge.
• Out of about 142 million hectares of net sown area in the country, 92.6 million hectares is rain-fed.
• Every alternate town/city in our country faces acute shortage of drinking water. • 45 percent of irrigation potential area has been fovered till date.
• 1,000 dams are under the stage of construction.
• One-fifth of the population i.e. 200 million people does not have safe drinking water and two-thirds i.e. 600 million lack basic sanitation in India.
• Cherapunji, the second place that gets the highest rainfall in the world faces on acute shortage of potable water in summer.
• The only state which has passed legislation exclusively for farmer participation in the management of irrigation systems is Andhra Pradesh. This shows the lack of government initiative in actively involving people (end users) in water management.
• The average overall water use efficiency in cannal irrigation systems is estimated at 88-40 percent.
• Water borne diseases have continued increasing over the years in spite of government efforts to combat them. States such as Punjab. Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have now become endemic for malaria on account of the high water table, water logging and see page in the canal catchment area. there are also numerous cases of filariasis.

In India, dams have displaced at least 33 million people from their homes.

With the picture not so promising, it is time for us to think and act. What we need today is a radical change in our policy, a fresh look at the present status and a will to contribute to the nation’s cause

Radical measures “small is always beautiful”. The successful experi-ments of small check dams (popularly called as barrages) in Ahmednagar District of Maharashtra is a live example of how small ideas can contribute towards revolutionising the way water can be managed. The cooperative movement, which commenced in Maharashtra under the leadership of Anna Hazare, is worth emulating.

This is an effective mode to conserve rain water in areas, which entirely depend on monsoon showers.

Our geographic complexity calls for adopting region specific policies. States such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu can certainly adopt the successful experiment of Maharashtra. They can be ideal substitutes for mega projects. Some of its benefits are :

• Less investment :
• Less shifting of population
• No ecological imbalances
• Strengthens cooperative movement
• Encourages better utilisation of available resources.
• States in the rich gangetic belt must adopt a systematic plan of linking and networking of rivers. This will reduce the burden on flooding rivers and ensure smooth flow in the lesser stressed, water deprived rivers. Though this plan appears to be challenging, a systematic and planned approach will certainly yield results.

South India is often called a land of tanks and streams. They have always been an issue of neglect and carelessness. Many tanks which are lifeline to the areas in which they exist are on the varge of drying or dying due to excessive siltation.

Efforts must be undertaken to upgrade these vast natural tubs water. A region specific inter-netwroking policy should be formulated and implemented.

Policy of harnessing underground water must be adopted. Checks and measures must be adopted in areas where the level is low compared to acceptable standards. One favourable point is that only 32 percent of evailable ground water resources have so for been developed.

Adopt newer and nature-friendly systems such as rain water harvesting. People adopting such new techniques should be encouraged and supported success stories of Artificial Recharge experiments at Meksana in Gujarat where well injection technique resulted in increase in water level and similar such experiments carried out at Amaravati in Maharashtra, Odakkali in Kerala and Mar in Karnataka at very low cost, should be pursued.

Subsidised Roof-top Rain Water Harvesting kits systems with technical know how should be provided by government to the interested citizens.

• Better irrigation methods such as drip irrigation and sprinkler systems should be a given highest priority. Even though many state governments have introduced such subsidised policies, formers must be encouraged with better incentives like assured crop market, standard price and so on.
• In the regions where water resources are meager, farmers must be encouraged to grow crops that consume less water.
• An efficient city/town specific networking of water lines should be adopted and if necessary it must relaid. Private investors should be encouraged in this area.
• The inter-state disputes must be given a fresh look and solved in the best interests of the disputing parties. A committee headed by Prime Minister and experts in Water Management should sincerely tackle the disputes and decision must be acceptable to the disputing parties.
• Water Pollution a major irritant in water management must be ad-dressed sincerely industries, which polluted water resources in rivers and natural streams, must be brought within the strict purview of pollution norms. Any irritating industry should be heavily taxed and if necessary licence should be withdrawn.

In many towns the drainage pollutants are discharged into rivers causing water borne epidemic diseases such as malaria, cholera. This is a problem as severe as acute water shortage. Government should ensure that international acceptable norms be followed while discharging the effluents. Industries must be compelled to use efficient industrial waste water treatment plants and effluents can be used for social purposes such as horticulture after primary and secondary treatment.

Till now, we discussed the policy management, which the governments must adopt. But and user ‘the common man’ has certain essential duties which are expected of him in this new millennium, only then the well-laid policies of our government will be successful.

People can contribute by lending their hand in cleaning all village tanks, wells and building percolation tanks and small check dams (e.g. Chikkapadasalagi Barrage in Bijapur district of Karnataka was a product of local people’s contribution and hard work.

Active involvement of Panchayati Raj institutions in organising awareness camps and coordinating people’s efforts is the need of the hour.

The Commitment :

“Time goes, you say ? Ah no ! Alas, time stay, we go” —Austin Dobson

Our ancient history is the best tonic for our future deeds. The excavations at Harappa, Mohenjodara and the tanks built by distinguished rulers of Mauryans, Pallavas, Chalukyas, Mughals are monumental illustrations of the expertise and mastery four past generations in water management.

Today we are able to harvest 205 mt. foodgrains, the unsung hero, which has made this possible is water.

The challenge is to produce more so that we can feed our future generations and this is only possible if our mother goddess ‘water’ gives sufficient milk (read water) to feed her future offspring in this divine mother-land. It will be a worthy tribute to our ancestors if we can join our hands and work together in conserving and efficiently using the available water resoruces.

The most important duty of water affluent areas is not to waste precious drops of water when their fellow brethren are dying of thirst in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh etc. Somehow, the modern toilets too consume quite a big quantity a potable drinking water. Why can’t we delink these toilets from drinking water supplies and connect them with other untreated water resources. We can at least do it in new buildings. Water Harvesting is another way to augment water supplies. The most important step would be Ganga-Cauvery link up. Even desalination of sea water can be tried in drought prone Kutch area of Gujarat. Above all, let’s restrict our multiplying numbers voluntarily.

Water Cycle

Process                        Km3/Year                 %                                 Com/Year

1. Precipitation on land 1,10,300 22%                            74
2. Evaporation from land 72,900 14%                            49
3. Runoff from land (river ran

off and direct ground water

discharge to the ocean 6%

of total precipitation on the earth)          37400                                                           29

4. Precipitation on the oceans 385700 78%                            07
5. Evaporation from the oceans 423100 86%                            17

Total precipitation on earth                    496000                     86+14                                    97      

Total Eva oration on earth                       49600                         78+22                                    97