Going Local to Solve the Urban Water Crisis
6 lakh households in Delhi do not have safely managed water within their premises. This figure is based on the latest socio-economic survey (2019) by the Delhi government. Most of these households have to buy water through water tankers, with their women standing in long queues and have to pay way more than those who are connected to the piped network. In peak season, there are daily brawls and on occasions serious law and order issues. Despite Delhi Jal Board (DJB) — the water utility responsible for providing water and septage management having a fleet of 1062 water tankers, there is a thriving market of private water tankers, known as ‘water mafia’ in popular parlance in the city. This is the story of the national capital of India. Imagine. Imagine the plight of the rest of the cities, where municipal corporations are overstressed, fund-starved and simply incapable of supplying clean water to their people and have negligible presence of wastewater treatment.
Access to safely managed water in India is a massive challenge — both in rural and urban part of the country. According to the Jal Shakti Ministry, 18 Cr people living in rural areas don’t have access to piped water. The source of water being kilometres away. Often dirty and in summer months dry. Women in these households perform this task of fetching water daily, which you wouldn’t even dare to do. For the urban centers, the story is the same, with rank apathy, disappearing water bodies, clogging — foaming rivers and lakes, nearly zero wastewater treatment, very little implementation of rainwater harvesting, depleting aquifers and groundwater. All aspects of water — quality, quantity, affordability and access suffer due to civic negligence. 80% of water from our homes leaves as sewage.
India has sewage capacity of only 30% of total sewage generated, but Delhi and Mumbai alone have 40% of that capacity in the country. Most of our rivers are polluted and massive schemes for their rejuvenation have been announced with little focus on the local conditions.
In Delhi, which is a water stressed city. Local solutions applied to different regions of the city are required. They are the levers of a comprehensive strategy. Delhi has more than 16,000 parks and gardens, which are huge open areas for decentralised, water sensitive solutions. In policy jargon — I call it ‘Low Impact Development Solutions’(LIDS). These are un-mechanized, natural and more often than not based on our traditional knowledge of water treatment and conservation. Natural treatment of wastewater at multiple locations, at neighbourhood level have been found to be more affective than building massive treatment plants and centralising the network. Delhi and other Indian cities have witnessed that practical issues like wastewater and sewage entering the treated water supply system. Peri-urban areas in most Indian cities do not have access to piped water network and large treatment plants because of two primary reasons.
First, they are located at the periphery and are not connected to the exiting water supply network. Sometimes, due to expansion there are jurisdiction issues in catering to them, due to administrative boundaries. Second, a host of topographical reasons are responsible for the absence. Difficult terrains, narrow lanes, distance from the large underground reservoirs are an impediment. Besides, a large amount of capital expenditure is necessary to build piped water networks. The storage of water is easy and convenient but the transportation of water is difficult and very expensive. Compare that with the transportation of similar natural resource, let’s say electricity. Electricity is easy to transport, but difficult to store. This is in diametrically opposite to water. No wonder, in India, electricity transportation to remote areas is still an easy task than distributing water. Long-distance transportation of electricity is feasible, but water transportation is required for localized areas.
Taking into account these factors, it necessary to devise cost-effective interventions such as LIDS to for the unserved and under-served. In the case of Delhi, parks and open spaces could be utilised to build decentralised water treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants with low capacity and bare minimum operation and maintenance costs. The Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) can play an active role in building this ‘neighbourhood’ solutions. After all Delhi has had an ancient culture of rainwater harvesting with baolis (open wells, which are often stepped) to store rain water. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Delhi has estimated that, one hectare with just 100 mm of rain (that’s what deserts get on an average) is capable of harvesting 1 million litres of water. This could be one of the solutions for effective rainwater harvesting and since Delhi does not have a dearth of parks and gardens, these could be easily build in smaller areas and connected locally. RWAs can effectively manage these with some government help.
Localised solutions which are sustainable, affordable and equitable are the need of the hour. Cleaning up water and using it as an economic asset is imperative. As the Sanskrit saying goes — Prakritih Rakshati Rakshita — Nature protects, if it is protected.
The author is a student of Public Policy at the Takshashila Institute, Bangalore. Views are personal.
