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Water scarcity is not the biggest problem in India. It is gross water mismanagement at every level and public and political ignorance and apathy. The summer thi

Water scarcity is not the biggest problem in India. It is gross water mismanagement at every level and public and political ignorance and apathy. The summer this year was extraordinarily hot and our place was under severe water scarcity, but the rainy season hasn't even started and we've already got almost 6 months worth of rainfall for my city. The problem is most of that water is not allowed to go into the ground and recharge the groundwater since almost every single inch is cemented or tarred and it runs-off into the sea or evaporates back. There is sufficient rainfall to meet the needs of most regions on India but due to a large number of causes the water is not conserved or utilised properly. Some of the causes are deforestation of hill slopes, large, ill-planned dams which are silting over, lack of water micro-management, storm-water drains instead of recharge wells, lack of rainwater harvesting, excessive consumption, encroachment of nearly every water-body, pollution of most of the remaining lakes and rivers etc. etc. It goes on and on. The point is India does get enough rainwater despite very hot summers, but human management sucks abysmally.

kranner 7y ago
> the rainy season hasn't even started and we've already got almost 6 months worth of rainfall for my city. I presume you're in Tamil Nadu because TN's rainy season is mostly due to the NE monsoon which hasn't started yet. Rainfall in the North-Western regions like Punjab really has been insufficient in past years. In many regions in Punjab it simply doesn't rain in the 'rainy season' anymore. Even in Tamil Nadu, didn't Chennai experience more than a 50% deficit in 2018?[1] When I visited Pondicherry a few years ago, everyone I spoke to said it now rains very little compared to the usual. This year's SW monsoon has seen heavy rains but it seems to be an outlier compared to the past few years. You are correct that there is gross water mismanagement and unplanned urbanisation. Ironically, Chennai's National Institute of Ocean Technology -- one of whose jobs is to prepare impact assessment reports on 'the implications of constructing on waterbodies'[2] -- is itself constructed on a paved-over former catchment area (and gets flooded as a result).[3] [1] https://weather.com/en-IN/india/monsoon/news/2018-12-23-historic-low-northeast-monsoon-rainfall-in-chennai https://weather.com/en-IN/india/monsoon/news/2018-12-23-hist... [2] https://qz.com/india/563396/chennai-floods-are-not-a-natural-disaster-theyve-been-created-by-greedy-town-planners-and-dumb-engineers/ https://qz.com/india/563396/chennai-floods-are-not-a-natural... [3] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/natural-disasters/why-chennai-floods-are-a-man-made-disaster-51980 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/natural-disasters/why-ch...
- AwfulCaptain 7y ago
  Isn’t this why, a couple months back, Modi created the new Ministry of Jal Shakti, which literal means Ministry of Water Strength? Their goals are to clean the rivers, provide safe drinking water, and implement water conservation.

kranner 7y ago

> the rainy season hasn't even started and we've already got almost 6 months worth of rainfall for my city. I presume you're in Tamil Nadu because TN's rainy season is mostly due to the NE monsoon which hasn't started yet. Rainfall in the North-Western regions like Punjab really has been insufficient in past years. In many regions in Punjab it simply doesn't rain in the 'rainy season' anymore. Even in Tamil Nadu, didn't Chennai experience more than a 50% deficit in 2018?[1] When I visited Pondicherry a few years ago, everyone I spoke to said it now rains very little compared to the usual. This year's SW monsoon has seen heavy rains but it seems to be an outlier compared to the past few years. You are correct that there is gross water mismanagement and unplanned urbanisation. Ironically, Chennai's National Institute of Ocean Technology -- one of whose jobs is to prepare impact assessment reports on 'the implications of constructing on waterbodies'[2] -- is itself constructed on a paved-over former catchment area (and gets flooded as a result).[3] [1] https://weather.com/en-IN/india/monsoon/news/2018-12-23-historic-low-northeast-monsoon-rainfall-in-chennai https://weather.com/en-IN/india/monsoon/news/2018-12-23-hist... [2] https://qz.com/india/563396/chennai-floods-are-not-a-natural-disaster-theyve-been-created-by-greedy-town-planners-and-dumb-engineers/ https://qz.com/india/563396/chennai-floods-are-not-a-natural... [3] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/natural-disasters/why-chennai-floods-are-a-man-made-disaster-51980 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/natural-disasters/why-ch...

AwfulCaptain 7y ago
Isn’t this why, a couple months back, Modi created the new Ministry of Jal Shakti, which literal means Ministry of Water Strength? Their goals are to clean the rivers, provide safe drinking water, and implement water conservation.