Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World by Mira Kamdar

Author:Mira Kamdar [Kamdar, Mira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, International, General, Political Science, International Relations, Political Economy
ISBN: 9780743296861
Google: Rc4j9-JaTtcC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2008-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

Saving Water, Saving Communities

Nirupa Bhangar is a lively yet centered woman in her fifties with smiling eyes who has been concerned with India’s water crisis for years. An ex–microbiology teacher, turned school administrator, she worked for the Agha Khan Network from 1987 to 1993. Later, she worked with Ion Exchange India, a pioneering water treatment company, as an advisor for setting up their Rural Cell. The experience changed her perspective. She discovered during her work in villages in rural Gujarat that scores of villagers were afflicted with acute fluorosis, poisoning from too much fluoride in their water. “The water table had sunk by eighty percent, and the naturally occurring fluoride was becoming concentrated. There wasn’t enough new water coming in to recharge the underground aquifers. People were so sick, they couldn’t get up without assistance,” she told me. Nirupa lives on the Worli seafront in Bombay, on a high floor with an unobstructed view of the Arabian Sea. We sat on a tatami mat in her bedroom-cum-office. I could see out pretty far to sea, far enough to note a distinct line separating the extremely polluted inky brown water close to shore from the more naturally colored steel blue water farther out.

Nirupa told me that 25 million people in India are at risk of poisoning from fluorosis. “Fluorosis leaches calcium from people’s bones. Around Ahmadabad, for example, where people are better off and have more calcium in their diet, they aren’t affected as badly as in other areas where people can’t afford to eat dairy products,” she said. Nirupa talked about the other problems in India’s groundwater supply: arsenic and iron. “Things have gotten worse since independence. More and more water is being diverted to the cities, either directly for drinking water, or indirectly via products for urban markets that are water-intensive to produce.” Nirupa mentioned the ground water problems that had developed in proximity to Coca-Cola’s plants in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

Wanting to do something that would be effective in addressing India’s rural water crisis, Nirupa traveled to Kutch and around Maharashtra visiting water harvesting and conservation efforts, trying to understand what worked and what didn’t. She was particularly inspired by her visit to Ralegaon Siddhi, a village transformed by native son and social activist Anna Hazare. By involving the villagers in the construction of a series of check dams, percolation dams, and other water-harvesting measures, Anna Hazare had raised the water tables and insured sufficient water for drinking and irrigation. Ralegaon Siddhi went from a barren, dysfunctional place in the 1970s where illegal liquor stalls plied their wares and crops fizzled under the relentless sun to a verdant, thriving village that today exports vegetables to the Arabian Gulf.

The core lesson Nirupa took from her investigations was that while rainwater harvesting was the solution, it was essential to involve villagers in any measures taken to help them. They had to feel ownership of the project, or it wouldn’t work. “A big problem in India is that water management is handled by civil engineers who are not equipped to do community-based work.

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