Politicians’ neglect towards governance has resulted in despoliation of water bodies, a Govt survey shows
The First Water Bodies Census is a good attempt to comprehend the issue. It found 2,424,540 water bodies, out of which 97.1 per cent (2,355,055) are in rural areas and only 2.9 per cent (69,485) in cities and towns. The census, carried out by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, was aimed at developing a national database for all water bodies by collecting information including their size, condition, status of encroachments, use, storage capacity, status of filling up of storage, etc. It found that 1.6 per cent water bodies are encroached. Most of the encroachments, 95.4 per cent, are in rural areas. Of all encroached water bodies, 62.8 per cent water bodies have less than 25 per cent and 11.8 per cent have more than 75 per cent area under encroachment. It may appear that with 95.4 per cent encroachments being in villages, the authorities at all levels should lay special emphasis in rural areas, but that is not correct. In percentage terms, cities suffer much more than villages. In Delhi, for example, 216 out of 893 water bodies — or almost every fourth — have been encroached. If this is the situation in the national Capital, one can imagine the plight of other and smaller cities. In Chennai, the encroachment problem acquired alarming proportions, resulting in floods in recent years. Just like the southern metropolis, other cities are also suffering from, among other problems, waterlogging during the rainy season because of the vanishing or shrinking lakes, ponds, etc.
It is not that the Government has been unaware of the problem of vanishing water bodies. It has an RRR (Repair, Renovation & Restoration) scheme which is a component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (Har Khet Ko Pani). It provides Central assistance to States for the creation and restoration of irrigation potential. Its objectives are comprehensive: increasing tank storage capacity, ground water recharge, higher availability of drinking water, improvement in agriculture and horticulture productivity, etc. Then there is the Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain campaign with the theme, “Catch the Rain, where it falls”. Launched in March 2021, it has five focused interventions: rainwater harvesting and water conservation; enumerating, geo-tagging and making inventory of all water bodies, and preparation of scientific plans for water conservation; setting up Jal Shakti Kendras in all districts; intensive afforestation; and awareness generation. The survey also notes that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is driving water conservation and water harvesting efforts all across rural India. This programme has helped to revive many traditional water bodies, it claims. All Government schemes may be good, but they are certainly not good enough to address the issue. At the heart of the problem is politicians’ lackadaisical approach towards governance, which results in encroachments and neglect of water bodies. That needs to change.