“ Life Depends On Water, The Reservoir Depends On You.”

“Water water everywhere , but not a drop to drink” , this age old proverb has eventually and unfortunately come true for some parts of our country and are about to be faced in some other parts with time.

There are plenty of water available in the oceans and seas but they cannot be consumed for domestic purposes , for consumption we have to rely on the fresh water sources like river, lakes, ponds, etc. Which now-a-days in India are fast disappearing for a million reasons and resulting in drought and acute water shortage.

Water bodies are very much required to recharge the ground water level and provide constant water supply and maintain the proper balance as well as absorb excess rain to prevent flooding. For far too long our governments have concentrated their attention and have paid lip service to one water resource [river ,ground water] that might provide the maximum dividend , but that initiative also haven’t been quite successful.

As India fight’s water crisis , water bodies [ponds, lakes, baolipeople or more.] also play a huge role in recharging the ground water level and provide enough support to our domestic consumption purpose their revival and better management assume even more significance if the Niti Aayog’s warning that “ground water level in 21 major cities like Delhi , Mumbai , Bangalore , Hyderabad will dry up completely by 2020 affecting 100 million people or even more” is to be taken seriously.

Every day experiences and studies suggest that more and more water bodies are drying up or disappearing from urban as well as rural landscapes due to

• uncontrolled , reckless urbanization leading to their encroachment for construction activities.

• dumping of sewage.

• industrial waste water.

• shift from community based water use to individual oriented groundwater dependent system.

• Inefficient use of water for agricultural practices. India is among the top in the matter of agricultural production in the world and therefore the consumption of water for irrigation is amongst the highest. Traditional techniques of irrigation leads to maximum water loss due to evaporation, drainage, percolation and excessive use of groundwater. This can be solved by extensive use of micro-irrigation techniques such as drip and sprinkler irrigation.

• Lack of on-time de-silting operations in large water bodies can also enhance water storage capacity during the monsoon season. Unfortunately governments at state levels has not taken this up on priority as an annual practice. This act alone can significantly add to the water storage levels and solve the problem of water shortage.

But as every problem has a solution , this one too can be avoided and original conditions can be restored once again by the following methods;

• A simple addition of a ‘water free’ male urinal in our homes can save well over 25,000 liters of water, per home every year .

• The amount of water which is wasted during dish washing at home is also very significant. We need to change our dish washing methods and minimize the habit of keeping the water running.

• Every independent home/flat and group housing colony must have rain water harvesting facility

• Waste water treatment and recycling for non-drinking purposes. Now a days apart from these several economical technologies are available that can be implemented in group housing areas.

• Very often, we see water leaking in our homes, in public areas and colonies. Even a small water leak can cause huge loss of water per year!

“Conserve water, conserve life.”

“Don’t flush our planet’s most valuable resource.”