3 ms·

This is a quote from the article: "India's vast farming economy is on the verge of crisis. The lack of rain has hit northern areas most, but even in Mumbai, whi

This is a quote from the article: "India's vast farming economy is on the verge of crisis. The lack of rain has hit northern areas most, but even in Mumbai, which has experienced heavy rainfall and flooding, authorities were forced to cut the water supply by 30% last week as levels in the lakes serving the city ran perilously low." Heavy rainfall and flooding followed by severe drought. This is a standard pattern across India, not just in Mumbai. Indian villages always have had water storage ponds - in fact most Hindu temples have a pond attached to them, which serves to recharge the ground water level in the whole village. What happened in the last 40+ years is a complete dismantling of traditional village governance, initially replaced with State-government appointed government bureaucrats (almost all of whom didn't reside in the village they were supposed to administer and rarely even visited it) and then much later, an elected village body that has few real powers, and still answers to a State-appointed bureaucrat. It was all done with the best of intentions. But it ended up centralizing rural administration - destroying the village in order to save it. Simple tasks as desilting the water storage ponds were neglected, and eventually many of those ponds were encroached upon. This is true everywhere in India, in major cities as well as small villages. So it is not simply just nature that is the problem here.

chaosprophet 17y ago
To the contrary, rural administrations are NOT centralized. Each village is governed by elected officials who are under the Panchayati Raj Ministry. These panchayati raj members are people who are elected from the very villages they govern (usually). In fact the aim of the Panchayati Raj system is to maintain the traditional village governance system. Attributing the flooding and draught to lack of proper administration is a faulty assumption. The real reason is the rampant abandonment of agriculture. In my own native village, the present generation no longer farms. The only people who continue to tend to agricultural duties are the previous generations. Also, not many temple ponds are maintained as they ought to be. Most temple ponds are empty, and most newly built temples do not have ponds. Also, in an attempt to "restore and modernise" temples, the temple pond bottoms are generally cemented, thus leaving no way for rainwater to seep through to the underground water table. The recent mandating of rain water harvesting facilities in many cities will somewhat rectify this problem. Also, we have a large coastline, but how many desalination plants do we have???
miked 17y ago
The article's not being told something about the real failure here, whatever that may be. India has monsoons, and anyplace with dependable monsoons and enough land to build reservoirs should never run out of water. BTW, if you've never experienced a monsoon, I can't recommend it enough. Most westerners try to travel in the dry season. That's understandable, but they're missing out on one of the great wonders of the world. It's just unbelievable how much water the atmosphere can hold and how fast it can get rid of it.
- sridharvembu 17y ago
  India built a vast distributed system of small reservoirs - also known as village ponds or temple ponds. The fact that the rural system of governance was dismantled (and they realized the problem, and tried to reassemble it in a pale imitation) led to the neglect of these ponds, among other issues.
  - miked 17y ago
    Thanks. I expected something like that. Local people have a strong incentive to make sure a local pond works. The people who run a centralized government have an incentive -- mostly their own thirst for power over others -- to make sure they control it, and little incentive to make sure it works.
Confusion 17y ago
From the article, I gather the people in the slums and the cities are more at risk than any villager. That makes sense: the denser the population, the larger the water shortage.

chaosprophet 17y ago

To the contrary, rural administrations are NOT centralized. Each village is governed by elected officials who are under the Panchayati Raj Ministry. These panchayati raj members are people who are elected from the very villages they govern (usually). In fact the aim of the Panchayati Raj system is to maintain the traditional village governance system. Attributing the flooding and draught to lack of proper administration is a faulty assumption. The real reason is the rampant abandonment of agriculture. In my own native village, the present generation no longer farms. The only people who continue to tend to agricultural duties are the previous generations. Also, not many temple ponds are maintained as they ought to be. Most temple ponds are empty, and most newly built temples do not have ponds. Also, in an attempt to "restore and modernise" temples, the temple pond bottoms are generally cemented, thus leaving no way for rainwater to seep through to the underground water table. The recent mandating of rain water harvesting facilities in many cities will somewhat rectify this problem. Also, we have a large coastline, but how many desalination plants do we have???

miked 17y ago

The article's not being told something about the real failure here, whatever that may be. India has monsoons, and anyplace with dependable monsoons and enough land to build reservoirs should never run out of water. BTW, if you've never experienced a monsoon, I can't recommend it enough. Most westerners try to travel in the dry season. That's understandable, but they're missing out on one of the great wonders of the world. It's just unbelievable how much water the atmosphere can hold and how fast it can get rid of it.

sridharvembu 17y ago
India built a vast distributed system of small reservoirs - also known as village ponds or temple ponds. The fact that the rural system of governance was dismantled (and they realized the problem, and tried to reassemble it in a pale imitation) led to the neglect of these ponds, among other issues.
- miked 17y ago
  Thanks. I expected something like that. Local people have a strong incentive to make sure a local pond works. The people who run a centralized government have an incentive -- mostly their own thirst for power over others -- to make sure they control it, and little incentive to make sure it works.

Confusion 17y ago

From the article, I gather the people in the slums and the cities are more at risk than any villager. That makes sense: the denser the population, the larger the water shortage.