Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti claims that her Ministry is already promoting rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge measures in the country. A Master Plan has been drawn and circulated to all state governments for harnessing surplus monsoon runoff to augment ground water resources.
Unfortunately, going by the actual financial allocations and institutional directives, rainwater harvesting is clearly not high on the minister’s agenda either. It is a state’s problem after all, is the constant refrain heard from the central corridors.
Here we are dealing with a full blown disaster and our only hope is to somehow survive next two months, most likely hotter than this April, and most certainly the hottest years in hundred years, after which we may have a good monsoon, as per Indian Met Department’s predictions. A monsoon that most likely will be wasted again because we forgot to fix our ancient rainwater harvesting bodies, the tanks, the ponds, the lakes, the backwaters, the rivers and the bunds.
Apathy, India’s biggest environmental threat; corruption, India’s biggest development roadblock; and greed of corporate stakeholders are at the core of the failure of implementation of rainwater harvesting policies in most cities across India.
The way forward requires a paradigm shift in water governance and the first step to achieve that is to identify, strengthen and provide legal validity to local institutions and empowerment of local communities, for ensuring equitable and sustainable use of water within ecological confines.
Both persuasive and legislative measures to involve local communities and stake-holders in the creation and maintenance of existing rain water harvesting bodies is a must and for that if criminalizing and penalizing non-conformance is the only way, then so be it.
Read the full article on Governance Today.
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