Governance

Water is not ‘gender-neutral’, especially in India. It is the woman of the house who walks an average of 6 km each day to collect water for household use. In the Kumaon region, a newly married bride visits the family spring to fetch water a day after the wedding, in a symbolic tradition of water responsibility.

A little less than 40 km away from the district headquarters of Tikamgarh in northern Madhya Pradesh lies a watershed, which is an area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place (US Environmental Protection Agency).

The dependence on natural resources is ever increasing, and so is the need to manage it better. Rural communities are relatively more dependent on crucial natural resources such as land, water and forest, the exploitation of which directly affects their livelihood.

The city of Kolkata is blessed to have its very own natural urban wastewater treatment system in the form of the East Kolkata Wetlands.

In Jhansi, Bundelkhand farmers experience great uncertainties in agriculture due to erratic rainfall. Covering 13 districts of southwest Uttar Pradesh and Northern Madhya Pradesh with a population of approximately 21 million, Bundelkhand is a typical semi-arid region.  Around 83% of the area is rural and more than one third of the households are considered to be below the poverty line.

Tamilnadu has a rich tradition of tank management at the village level. Every village had one or more irrigation tanks, locally known as ‘kanmais’ or ‘eris’, and a drinking water tank called ‘ooranis’. This system worked for centuries with the support of residents and the local administration.

In 1989, Bihar's Darbhanga town boasted 213 ponds. Today nearly 25% of them have been drained, leveled to the ground, filled up and built over. Hotels, houses and highrise buildings have bulldozed their way onto these water bodies. Do we not need these ponds any longer? Are they better of as bedrocks of development in these land-starved times? 

Once upon a time

Our day-to-day dependence on fresh water is tremendous, whether for domestic or agricultural use. Theoretically, we know that it is a finite resource and that it can't be taken for granted but in practice, we do. India has an average rainfall of around 1150 mm but lets out nearly 1263 billion cubic metres of water into the sea unutilized. 

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