Will India Too Lose Its Lifeline?

The drought in Cape Town has set alarm bells ringing across the world, especially in India, where depletion of ground water is rampant. Are Indian cities in peril.

- Avishek Banerjee

 

INDIA’S NATIONAL CRICKET TEAM joined hands with its South African counterpart recently for the cause of drought-hit Cape Town, in coastal South Africa. The cricketers together donated 100,000 Rands (approximately Rs 5,50,000) for South Africa’s legislative capital and its secondmost populous urban area. Cape Town’s water supplies are severely under stress and July 15 may turn out to be ‘Day Zero’, when civic bodies turn off the municipal taps

The severe water crisis in Cape Town has tolled alarm bells across the globe, including India, where the availability is 1,519 cubic metres of water per person per year. Even though India has never faced a water crisis at a national level, some regions like Bundelkhand, Vidarbha,

Marathwada, Kajrat and Chattarpur, have been in the grips of a drought.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) projects a water deficit of 50 percent by 2030. The Union Ministry of Water Resources estimates the country’s water requirements to be 1,100 billion cubic metres per annum (BCMA) and at around 1,200 BCMA during 2025 and 1,447 BCMA by 2050. Way back in 2014, the World Urbanization Prospects report of the United Nations predicted that India would have the largest number of urban dwellers in the world by 2050. Research studies have proved that the per capita annual availability of water is likely to drop further to 1,140 cubic metres per person by 2051. India’s population meanwhile, is expected to catapult to 1.6 billion by 2050.

Will Indian cities be able to cope with the growing demand for water, when they are already unable to provide clean water round-the-clock, even in the metropolises of Delhi and Mumbai? “In India, a city may not go completely dry, but early signs of the demand for water exceeding supply can be seen in many states,” says Girish Chadha, an entrepreneur and a water expert.