Action must complement policies on paper
Two developments that are apparently unconnected but really related have to be taken with seriousness. The first is a recent Uttarakhand High Court order declaring the Ganga and the Yamuna rivers as living entities. And the second is information available with the Union Ministry of Water Resources that India is getting to be severely water-stressed, with the capacity perhaps to endure just one serious drought. The linkage between the two is apparent; water bodies are shrinking, drying up or getting polluted. Take the country's two major rivers mentioned above. They remain a major source of potable water in many regions of north India.
But decades of pollution have all but reduced them to a critical stage. They are still large and flowing but choking with pollutants as well. Now that the Uttarakhand High Court has bestowed living status on them (it means they are akin to individuals with the rights a citizen of the country has) — it is expected that the ‘guardians', who are the authorities concerned, will work overtime to clean them up. It also means that these guardians will be held accountable in case they fail to clean up the river or at the very least take tangible steps to do the needful. The Modi Government has been giving a great deal of attention to cleaning up of our rivers, and Namami Gange plan, which is part of the larger National Mission for Clean Ganga, is proceeding at a fairly satisfactory pace. However, there is a great deal that is to be done before the authorities can claim to have reached a satisfactory level of success. It is heartening that the Union Minister concerned, Uma Bharti, is focused almost obsessively on the issue. Besides, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a personal stake in the matter; he is a Member of Parliament from Varanasi, which is inseparable from Ganga. Closer to the seat of power, in Delhi, the Union Government is a first-hand witness to the deterioration of the river Yamuna. It's an irony that a country such as India, which is fed by multiple major rivers — and that too rivers that have been revered since ancient times and have formed cradles of civilisation — should be facing water-stressed conditions.
Given the prevailing situation, the Water Resources Ministry figures, while alarming, are not surprising. The per capita availability of water in the country could be less than 1,500 cubic metres; since the danger mark is less than 1,700 cubic metres, India is already deeply water-stressed. The growing population is certainly one contributory factor but as important is falling water bodies and rising pollution in those that exist. Together, they have been playing havoc. The saving grace is that India is in the water-stressed category and not plunged to the ‘water scarcity' level. But the scarcity mark is just one notch away, if Indian policymakers and citizens don't wake up. Grand plans on paper are not going to resolve the crisis; action and accountability will.