Contamination, Pollution and Quality

Content Courtesy: Radical Socialist
Author: Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti

In this press release dated 4th June 2010, the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti expresses concern that the effluent treatment facilities across the Golden Corridor do not conform to the Gujarat State Pollution Control Board  (GPCB) and demands that effluent discharge at Tadgam Sarigam Pipeline, from FETP, Ankleshwar, ECP, Vadodara and CETPs of Ahmedabad be stopped.

This paper by the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth deals with access of the poor to water supply and sanitation in India. It argues that economic, technical, institutional as well as social factors constrain access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation in India for both the urban and rural poor, and that coverage figures do not reflect this restricted access. It finds that, increasingly, communities are being required to manage their own water and sanitation schemes, not just in rural areas but in urban ones as well.

The paper deals with domestic water supply and sanitation and presents a historical overview of the phenomenon in rural and urban India. This is followed by a critique of available figures for coverage which, it is contended, seem exaggerated because they do not account for the several constraints to access. It addresses the specific institutional problems faced in the public sector delivery of these two utilities in India apart from dealing with the parallel yet thus far limited presence of the private sector in these twin arenas.

Content Courtesy: Solution Exchange and Nitya Jacob
Author: Nitya Jacob

India’s arteries are choking. Her rivers, the lifeline of hundreds of millions, are over-taxed, polluted and encroached. They are being mined, dammed and emptied of water. Save for the four monsoon months, most rivers are streams of drains, depending on how many cities they pass through. This year people gaped in awe at the River Yamuna (I am sure they were over-awed by other rivers elsewhere too) as for the first time since 1978 looked like a river and not a drain.

This paper discusses how to go about designing an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary research project or programme, with ZEF’s research initiative on ‘water pollution and human health’ in India as the background of the presentation. A summary is given of Pohl and Hirsch Hadorn’s main arguments regarding ‘design principles’ for inter- and transdisciplinary research, and the basic tools they have developed for this are discussed in the context of ZEF’s ‘water pollution and human health’ research initiative.

This paper by the World Resources Institute outlines potential water-related risks facing the mining industry and highlights important gaps in water-related disclosure. The purpose is to provide information, questions, and tools to help the financial community better evaluate water-related risks facing mining companies.

This working paper by the University of Bonn attempts to give a spatial and temporal overview of water management in India. It traces how people and the successive regimes made choices across space and time from a wide range of water control and distribution technologies. The paper divides the water management in India into four periods –

• the traditional system of water management before colonial times;
• response from the colonial rulers to manage the complex socio-ecological system;
• large scale surface water development after independence; and
• finally, the small-scale community and market-led revolution.

This report by the Central Ground Water Board entitled ‘Ground Water Quality in Shallow Aquifers of India’ is an outcome of the follow up of one of the important recommendations of the second meeting of the Advisory Council on Artificial Recharge to Ground Water during September 2007. It attempts to summarize various aspects of groundwater quality in the shallow aquifers in the country with special reference to six parameters viz. salinity, chloride, arsenic, fluoride, iron and nitrate.

This deals with the Central Government’s order on “Uniform Protocol on Water Quality Monitoring Order” in June 2005 in exercise of the powers conferred by section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Due to the deterioration of the river water quality, health and livelihood of the downstream people are being severely affected and concerns are raised time and again. 

This document, an outcome of the joint efforts of NIH and CGWB gives a detailed outline emphasizing the gaps, focal areas of research, immediate measures to be taken up to provide arsenic safe potable water to the people in the arsenic vulnerable areas, other activities to be initiated for attaining a logical conclusion of the arsenic problem and also to develop a roadmap delineating as to how the suggested activities could be initiated, coordinated, undertaken, including framing out a budget estimate to fulfill those activities.

This study attempts to develop a case study of the Western Yamuna Canal Command in Haryana with the purpose of developing a general picture of the institutional environment and arrangements related to water resource development and use in the State of Haryana. It is based on a review of water law, policy and administration and helps draw conclusions on whether the existing governance systems are meeting the current needs and suggests alternate options. The study has attempted to test the following hypothesis –