The Hindu Business Line : Concern over treating water as commodity

The Centre intends to provide Rs 8,000 crore as grant during the Eleventh Plan period to fund schemes aimed at providing safe and adequate drinking water supply.

Our Bureau

Thiruvananthapuram, March 12 The drinking water supply sector faces the threat of commercialisation, according to Ms Santha Sheela Nair, Secretary at the Union Department of Drinking Water Supply in New Delhi. Mindless privatisation of drinking water could put paid to the hopes of meeting the goals of equity and social justice, she said at a function here earlier this week.

Ms Nair was delivering the inaugural address at a ‘National conference on innovative methodologies for creating drinking water security’ organised by the Central and Kerala Governments at the Santhigiri Ashram near here.

The Centre intends to provide Rs 8,000 crore as grant during the Eleventh Plan period to fund schemes aimed at providing safe, reliable and adequate drinking water supply in the country.

The total plan allocation for drinking water supply in rural areas alone is Rs 39,400 crore. Twenty per cent of this, amounting to Rs 8,000 crore, is available as grant for community-level projects on sustainable drinking water systems.

“There is an urgent need for diversifying and “unbundling” the sources of drinking water,” Ms Nair said, and observed that as much as 80 per cent of the country’s drinking water needs were met through groundwater.

She expressed concern at the tendency to exploit groundwater sources as if there is no tomorrow. Quality issues have also been emerging in recent times with respect to its use.

The Centre is contemplating an online engineering course through IIT-Chennai to train young engineers in sustainable water harvesting technology.

Roof-water harvesting is a simple and decentralised method for collecting rainwater for direct use and groundwater re-charging.

Ms Nair said that drinking water supply systems should be designed to reach out to where it is needed most so that huge costs on shipping water from far-off mega projects could be reduced.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr K. Jayakumar, Additional Chief Secretary, Kerala, said natural availability of water had led people of the State to become indifferent to conservation.

Reclamation of paddy fields and water bodies had played havoc with the environment over the last 25 to 30 years, changing the topography and resulting in groundwater depletion. No wonder droughts and floods occur with increasing frequency in the State, Mr Jayakumar added.

Deforestation

Presiding over the function, Mr Varkala Radhakrishnan, MP, said that rampant deforestation and encroachment on forest areas had led to changes in rainfall patterns over the State.

Among those who spoke on the occasion were Ms J. Arundhati, MLA; Mr V. Subhash Chandra Bose, Director, Water Resources Department, Kerala; and Swami Gurumithran Jnana Thapaswi, member, General Council, Santhigiri Ashram.

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