Drifts in the desert

The Government of Maharashtra has spent over Rs 25,000 crore so far to provide drinking water. Still, 53,462 villages face acute shortage and depend on water tankers for supply 1998 survey. This figure is higher than any other state in the country, even Rajasthan.

Maharashtra has also spent another Rs 25,000 crore on various irrigation projects, dams and canals. Yet, only 15 per cent of its land remains irrigated and 85 per cent is still rainfed. Moreover, only 2 per cent of the land where sugarcane crop is grown consumes 70 per cent of the water available. Let us take another look at the sugarcane crop. One hectare requires 240 lakh litres of water. If 10 per cent of the sugarcane crop is grown in the Konkan area where there is already plenty of water, we can save enough water to provide 40/50 litres per day to every person in Maharashtra.

Because of heavy rains during the monsoon season, between one and 10 tonnes of topsoil per hectare gets washed away. Nature takes 100-400 years to build just a 1 cm layer. As a result of soil erosion, dams are getting silted and their water storage capacity is shrinking rapidly and they may become useless over the next three-four decades. Not only that, we lose as much as 50 per cent of water stored in some dams due to percolation and evaporation. The wider the surface area of the dam, faster is the rate of evaporation, especially during summer. We must think of innovative ways to minimise this loss.

We have not paid much attention to water canals either. They are generally not lined. As a result we lose 70 per cent of the canal water due to percolation.

People in the West are now realising the problems associated with big dams. In France, they have dismantled two such dams, block by block. In the US they have cleared more than 500 such obstacles.

Maharashtra is situated on the Deccan Trap, on basalt rocks. There is very little chance of rain water percolating down to 100 m through such rocks. Even then, we have gone ahead and dug five lakh tubewells which go as deep as 100-150 m. One tubewell results in drying up of 10 other wells surrounding it. The result is that the wells run dry and farmers cannot repay their loans. Perhaps it also leads to suicides.

Obviously, we need to focus on watershed development and recharging of wells. Then we would not need tubewells to pump out ground water. The cost of watershed development is low, at Rs 10,000 per hectare. Cost of canal irrigation is 10 times more 8212; that is, Rs 1 lakh per hectare.

Our forefathers were visionaries. Chhatrapati Shivaji built many forts in the Sahyadri ranges. But each fort had its own drinking water supply which did not dry up even at the height of summer. Today the villages at the foot of these forts also face water shortage.

Mumbai gets piped water supply. But it loses 40 per cent on the way because of unauthorised tapping. The cost of water supply ranges from Rs 8 to Rs 15 per CuM but water user charge is highly subsidised at Rs 2-3 per CuM.

As for waste water, a city like Pune has a totally inadequate system of sewage treatment. A lot of sewage water flows into the Mula Mutha river which contaminates it and leads to diseases downstream. Recycling of bathroom/kitchen/toilet water and using it for gardening can save enormous quantities of water in housing societies and complexes. Rooftop rain harvesting is also another practical solution. With 600 mm annual rainfall, a catchment area of 10,000 sq ft on the roof or ground can collect 6 lakh litres of water to meet the needs of the entire housing colony.

At the time of Independence water availability was 5177 CuM per capita. It has come down to 1140 CuM per capita because of the population explosion.

The finance minister spends 30-40 per cent of the time of his Budget speech on agriculture but provides hardly 3-4 per cent of the Budget provisions for it!

The writer is chairman of Kinetic Group