IIPM Prof Rajita Chaudhuri: The New Age Woman
When it was predicted about a decade back that the next World War would be fought for control of water, sceptics dismissed it as a mere hyperbole. Now, with killings over water being reported from across the country, the spectre of the past is becoming a scary reality. The TSI team of Anil Sharma, Raju Kumar and Nishant Bhadreshwar takes stock
When it was predicted about a decade back that the next World War would be fought for control of water, sceptics dismissed it as a mere hyperbole. Now, with killings over water being reported from across the country, the spectre of the past is becoming a scary reality. The TSI team of Anil Sharma, Raju Kumar and Nishant Bhadreshwar takes stock
RAJU KUMAR AND NISHANT BHADRESHWAR
Water woes intensify It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in want of a wife must be a good provider. However, what the word ‘provider’ encompasses has acquired a new meaning in Rajasthan. Here, a man must be able to provide water to the family apart from other things. Sounds like a leaf out of Ripley’s ‘Believe It or Not’, but the acute water scarcity in the state has made a lot of people wary of marrying off their daughters in villages where women would inevitably have to trudge for miles everyday to fetch some water. “Often, women have to walk for miles to collect water. Many people are reluctant to marry off their daughters into such communities,” says Rameshwar Chaudhari, a resident of village Chopra Dhotra in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. His village is facing severe water crisis.
Rajasthan, spread over 10.4 per cent of the country’s geographical area and sustaining more than 5.5 per cent of the human population and 18.70 per cent of the livestock, has only 1.16 per cent of the total surface water available in the country. This year, the ground water situation has turned alarming in the state with only 30 water blocks out of the total 237 left in the safe zone. With increase in the population and subsequently the demand for water for various purposes, the state is already in the middle of a terrible water crisis. The per capita annual water availability in the state is about 650 cubic meters against the minimum requirement of 1,000 cubic meters. “I am 60 years old and have never seen a situation like this. We get water only once or twice a month and even that comes with low pressure. It takes over half an hour to fill a bucket,” says Kamla, a resident of Naulakhi in Sri Ganganagar district. The crisis has also become so acute in Atru in Baran district that the water department—in spite of spending Rs 20,000 daily on the supply of water—is finding it difficult to meet the local demand through tankers.
The local administration in Akhlera in Jhalawar district, having a population of over 12,000, is now planning to engage 150 plus tankers to supply water. The only source of water in the town, Amalvada Deh dam, is drying up fast. Similar situation has emerged in Sojat Road in Pali district where the administration has demanded a special 65 wagon water train to overcome the crisis. Women in Bhilwara town of Rajasthan recently blocked the road in front of the municipality, demanding increased water supply. “We want more tube wells to be dug up so that we can get water,” says Kamla, a housewife. Water is being supplied once in every five days in the town famous for its textile industry. The scenario in the state capital Jaipur is no better, where water is being supplied once in a day, and that too only for an hour. “To add to our woes, we have heard that the government is planning to make it once in 48 hours. How would we live,” says Ashok Kumar Sharma, a resident of the walled city area.
Gone are the days when people would man pyaos to give water to the thirsty. Now, people are manning water bodies to keep the thirsty away from them. Water shortage has forced the residents of a village near Bikaner to maintain a tight vigil on the village water bodies to prevent water theft. “There is always a threat of water theft, so we have appointed watchmen to keep a vigil on our water bodies,” says Bhola Ram, a resident of Pugal village in Bikaner district.
It is feared that the availability would fall below 450 cubic metres by the year 2050. As per the international accepted norms, availability of water below 500 cubic metres is considered as absolute water scarcity. Although the Ashok Gehlot government is trying to take steps to ease the crisis, but so far the problem persists. “We are doing whatever best we can. Supplying water through tankers and running water trains. We have decided to supply water through tankers to more than 10,000 villages during May and June,” a senior official of the water department tells TSI. “We have also decided to focus on community-based water management solutions instead of predominantly engineering-based ones,” he adds.
The situation in the neighbouring Madhya Pradesh is probably worse. Brawls over water are resulting in people eventually killing each other at many places in the state. Incidents of the killing of three people of the same family in Bhopal, two people in Indore, a person in Bilkhiriya village and a person in Devas dot the 2009 calendar. Water woes intensify This year the first incident of killing over water was reported from the Bakshibagh locality of Indore on March 31. A 16 year old girl, Poonam Yadav, was stabbed to death by one of her neighbours. On April 7, Ramchandra of Alot was shot dead by his neighbour. On May 9, a few people killed 60 year old Madholal of Dhakora village in Rajgarh district following a squabble at the village well. A similar incident was reported from the Naryavali village in Sagar district a day earlier where a few people attacked with an axe and injured one Pushpabai at a well.
This is besides the daily squabbles over water in the state capital Bhopal where water is being supplied only once in 48 hours. People have to unfailingly wake up very early in the morning to fill their tanks. Others choose to keep a vigil whole night lest they miss the chance.
Water is hard to find even at 600 feet at some places in MP. Scores of rivers and water bodies have dried up. Gauri Shankar Bisen, a minister in the MP government, accepts that the crisis in the state is real. “There is acute water crisis in the state. We have allocated sufficient funds for the supply of drinking water to all the districts. We are paying special attention to the districts where the situation is more serious such as in Shyopur and Neemach,” he informs TSI.
In Maharashtra, farmers are the worst hit because of the water scarcity. “I had 3,200 trees of pomegranate on my farm. Of them, just 600 are left now. I had to cut down most of them due to lack of water,” says Ranjeet Patil who owns 30 acres of land at chakur town, 13 km off Latur. It’s not that Patil did not try to get water. There are as many as 17 bore wells on his farm but there is no water. The first bore well was 3oo feet deep and the 17th one was dug at 625 feet.
Presently, about 36,65,000 hectare of land is under irrigation in Maharashtra. The figure was12,20,000 hectare in 1960. With no considerable change in the rainfall pattern during the last 50 years, farmers had to rely on the underground water to meet the increasing need. But that too is now out of sight. Ecological Expert Atul Deolgaokar says, “According to a report by ‘International Water Management Institute’, if the use of water for drinking and farming continues in same way, then 70 per cent of the groundwater would be used up by 2020.”
In a survey done in March by the ‘Maharashtra State Groundwater Survey and Development Department’, it was found that out of 47 towns in Konkan division, groundwater level in 11 towns has gone down by one metre. In Aurangabad division it has dipped by one to three metres at different places. And this is what has affected farmers like Patil.
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
IIPM BBA MBA B-School: Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize To Irom Chanu Sharmila
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Social Networking Sites have become advertising shops
IIPM makes business education truly global
Water woes intensify It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in want of a wife must be a good provider. However, what the word ‘provider’ encompasses has acquired a new meaning in Rajasthan. Here, a man must be able to provide water to the family apart from other things. Sounds like a leaf out of Ripley’s ‘Believe It or Not’, but the acute water scarcity in the state has made a lot of people wary of marrying off their daughters in villages where women would inevitably have to trudge for miles everyday to fetch some water. “Often, women have to walk for miles to collect water. Many people are reluctant to marry off their daughters into such communities,” says Rameshwar Chaudhari, a resident of village Chopra Dhotra in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. His village is facing severe water crisis.
Rajasthan, spread over 10.4 per cent of the country’s geographical area and sustaining more than 5.5 per cent of the human population and 18.70 per cent of the livestock, has only 1.16 per cent of the total surface water available in the country. This year, the ground water situation has turned alarming in the state with only 30 water blocks out of the total 237 left in the safe zone. With increase in the population and subsequently the demand for water for various purposes, the state is already in the middle of a terrible water crisis. The per capita annual water availability in the state is about 650 cubic meters against the minimum requirement of 1,000 cubic meters. “I am 60 years old and have never seen a situation like this. We get water only once or twice a month and even that comes with low pressure. It takes over half an hour to fill a bucket,” says Kamla, a resident of Naulakhi in Sri Ganganagar district. The crisis has also become so acute in Atru in Baran district that the water department—in spite of spending Rs 20,000 daily on the supply of water—is finding it difficult to meet the local demand through tankers.
The local administration in Akhlera in Jhalawar district, having a population of over 12,000, is now planning to engage 150 plus tankers to supply water. The only source of water in the town, Amalvada Deh dam, is drying up fast. Similar situation has emerged in Sojat Road in Pali district where the administration has demanded a special 65 wagon water train to overcome the crisis. Women in Bhilwara town of Rajasthan recently blocked the road in front of the municipality, demanding increased water supply. “We want more tube wells to be dug up so that we can get water,” says Kamla, a housewife. Water is being supplied once in every five days in the town famous for its textile industry. The scenario in the state capital Jaipur is no better, where water is being supplied once in a day, and that too only for an hour. “To add to our woes, we have heard that the government is planning to make it once in 48 hours. How would we live,” says Ashok Kumar Sharma, a resident of the walled city area.
Gone are the days when people would man pyaos to give water to the thirsty. Now, people are manning water bodies to keep the thirsty away from them. Water shortage has forced the residents of a village near Bikaner to maintain a tight vigil on the village water bodies to prevent water theft. “There is always a threat of water theft, so we have appointed watchmen to keep a vigil on our water bodies,” says Bhola Ram, a resident of Pugal village in Bikaner district.
It is feared that the availability would fall below 450 cubic metres by the year 2050. As per the international accepted norms, availability of water below 500 cubic metres is considered as absolute water scarcity. Although the Ashok Gehlot government is trying to take steps to ease the crisis, but so far the problem persists. “We are doing whatever best we can. Supplying water through tankers and running water trains. We have decided to supply water through tankers to more than 10,000 villages during May and June,” a senior official of the water department tells TSI. “We have also decided to focus on community-based water management solutions instead of predominantly engineering-based ones,” he adds.
The situation in the neighbouring Madhya Pradesh is probably worse. Brawls over water are resulting in people eventually killing each other at many places in the state. Incidents of the killing of three people of the same family in Bhopal, two people in Indore, a person in Bilkhiriya village and a person in Devas dot the 2009 calendar. Water woes intensify This year the first incident of killing over water was reported from the Bakshibagh locality of Indore on March 31. A 16 year old girl, Poonam Yadav, was stabbed to death by one of her neighbours. On April 7, Ramchandra of Alot was shot dead by his neighbour. On May 9, a few people killed 60 year old Madholal of Dhakora village in Rajgarh district following a squabble at the village well. A similar incident was reported from the Naryavali village in Sagar district a day earlier where a few people attacked with an axe and injured one Pushpabai at a well.
This is besides the daily squabbles over water in the state capital Bhopal where water is being supplied only once in 48 hours. People have to unfailingly wake up very early in the morning to fill their tanks. Others choose to keep a vigil whole night lest they miss the chance.
Water is hard to find even at 600 feet at some places in MP. Scores of rivers and water bodies have dried up. Gauri Shankar Bisen, a minister in the MP government, accepts that the crisis in the state is real. “There is acute water crisis in the state. We have allocated sufficient funds for the supply of drinking water to all the districts. We are paying special attention to the districts where the situation is more serious such as in Shyopur and Neemach,” he informs TSI.
In Maharashtra, farmers are the worst hit because of the water scarcity. “I had 3,200 trees of pomegranate on my farm. Of them, just 600 are left now. I had to cut down most of them due to lack of water,” says Ranjeet Patil who owns 30 acres of land at chakur town, 13 km off Latur. It’s not that Patil did not try to get water. There are as many as 17 bore wells on his farm but there is no water. The first bore well was 3oo feet deep and the 17th one was dug at 625 feet.
Presently, about 36,65,000 hectare of land is under irrigation in Maharashtra. The figure was12,20,000 hectare in 1960. With no considerable change in the rainfall pattern during the last 50 years, farmers had to rely on the underground water to meet the increasing need. But that too is now out of sight. Ecological Expert Atul Deolgaokar says, “According to a report by ‘International Water Management Institute’, if the use of water for drinking and farming continues in same way, then 70 per cent of the groundwater would be used up by 2020.”
In a survey done in March by the ‘Maharashtra State Groundwater Survey and Development Department’, it was found that out of 47 towns in Konkan division, groundwater level in 11 towns has gone down by one metre. In Aurangabad division it has dipped by one to three metres at different places. And this is what has affected farmers like Patil.
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
IIPM BBA MBA B-School: Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize To Irom Chanu Sharmila
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Social Networking Sites have become advertising shops
IIPM makes business education truly global
No comments:
Post a Comment