NDTV 24×7 conducted a live debate on 18th June 2019 from 8.30 to 9 pm. The Program was titled Reality Check. It was anchored by Vishnu Som. The panelists in the discussion were S Muralidharan, Prof. Manohar Khushalani and TKS Elangovan.

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NDTV has conducted a survey in chennai asking the general public about various problems that they are facing related to water. The residents then told the channel that they have to wait for hours in line to collect some water for every 2 days. Some of them even said that they don’t get enough water to bath. 

According to a london-based risk analytics firm, Chennai is facing “the most extreme risk” of water stress and that this situation could be the new normal for millions of people.  Chennai, he said, gets an average of 54 days of rain per year, yielding an average rainfall of about 140 centimeters (55 inches). Its failure to collect the rain that falls, especially during poor monsoons such as that of last autumn, leads to what he called a “man-made” crisis of scarcity. Less than four years ago, Chennai saw devastating floods that took at least 422 lives in Tamil Nadu and caused up to $14 billion in damages. But most of that rainwater flowed into the sea, lost forever to Chennai’s parched groundwater reserves. As the coastal city anticipates its upcoming autumn monsoon season, residents and experts have criticized authorities for failing to rehabilitate a notoriously mismanaged water supply.

Unless we capture the rain that falls in those monsoon days, we will run out of water

Manohar Khushalani stated that the big factors that have led to this crisis in Tamil Nadu are deforestation and mining, in other words construction of buildings for development is in the process.. These types of constructions have halted the recharge of lakes and reservoirs that  supply water to the households, and since the recharge has stopped, the major lakes and reservoirs have gone completely dry. Even the amount of rainfall has been declining and that amount was not enough to recharge the lakes.

Water tankers are being called into most of the areas of Tamil Nadu which are facing drought. However, government tankers can take up to a month to appear after requested, so some families, wealthy residents, and business owners have opted to pay for costly private water tankers. The poor who live in slums do not have this option; a family in Chennai’s slums may receive as little as 30 litres (7.9 US gallons) of water every day compared to an average American household which uses 1,150 litres (300 US gallons) of water a day.

S Muralidharan mentioned the fact that Tamil Nadu contains 6 percent of India’s population and it covers 4 percent of India’s land area but still the state only receives 2-2.5 percent of the water provided. This tells that Tamil Nadu has already become a dry state and is facing water crisis currently.

What steps have been taken to improve the situation?

The Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board, which is responsible for the city’s water supply, has pushed for lakes to be desilted, allowing them to be used for water storage. The state government said in response it has begun to set up 270 water purification centers and has recently begun construction on Chennai’s third desalination plant, after which the government said the city will no longer have to rely on monsoon rains.

Under former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who served in the role for over 14 years, Chennai made rainwater harvesting compulsory, requiring every building to install a water catchment system on its rooftop and pour the collected rainwater into the ground. However, when a survey was conducted regarding this, only 40 percent of the buildings were found to be complying with this law. The following three years brought heavy rains and, he said, dramatically raised the groundwater level, filling dry open wells for the first time in decades. Though the 40 percent compliance rate was a good start, it wasn’t good enough for the state to come out of the water crisis.

The city already has two desalination plants with capacity of 210 million litres a day that service the northern suburbs. A third 150 million litre plant costing nearly Rs 1300 crore would be ready next year. 2 new recycling plants are also being built which will have a capacity of 120 million litres a day. This will free up domestic drinking water supplies and reduce the reliance on the already stressed ground water resources.

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Manohar Khushalani was one of the panelists who appeared live on NDTV for a panel discussion on the water crisis faced in India. This video gives an insight into the problems faced by Indians when it comes to water as well as some expert opinions on this matter. Some of the other panelists are Raghav Chadha, VK Madhavan, Medha Patkar, Dr. Vaman Acharya, and Arunabha Ghosh.

India is facing a major water crisis. People are facing drought-like situations and running out of tap water in major cities like Bengaluru, Chennai and even in the capital, Delhi.

Raghav Chadha started the discussion by giving facts such as, the water availability has increased in Delhi in the last 4 years from 50 percent of the population receiving usable water to 80 percent. He also said the government is planning to rejuvenate lakes and also create new lakes as resources for freshwater. He also mentioned that the condition of south delhi districts, which earlier faced the problem of clean water and also improper sewage treatment, has now been fixed and will be provided with usable fresh water in the upcoming months.

Prof. Manohar Khushalani mentioned the fact that India as a country consumes more groundwater than any other country. He also stated that water should now be treated as a subject for the central government instead of being treated as a state subject. The states do not have enough coordination and are busy in handling the inter-state water disputes while the residents are still suffering. He also mentioned the fact that there needs to be more research put into methods for getting water from rivers and other sources.

VK Madhavan then gave some key perspectives such as, that the water crisis is caused not only due to excessive use of water but also improper distribution and conservation of water. He argued that the source of tankers that provide water to communities is uncertain, and there are still major areas that don’t have assured access. At a later stage of the discussion he also mentioned that cities are largely dependent on groundwater but do nothing when it comes to implementation methods like drip irrigation to conserve water. India receives a huge amount of rainfall which doesn’t necessarily seep into the ground and thus should be stored and filtered in an efficient manner.

Medha Patkar emphasised on the fact that the current structures and working of dams and related buildings are destroying the rivers. She also highlighted that the government should be focusing more on mini and micro water shedding instead of macro water shedding. She also said that the government’s main strategy should revolve around controlling the access to water on a per house basis and that for major changes the community itself should play a big role.

While water scarcity in India as an issue has not been discussed as topmost important matter, it is high time the people should focus on this subject, or else it’ll be too late to realise and it will affect India and its people way more than it is doing today.

Chennai, the fourth largest city in India, is the worst hit city when it comes to water crisis. Chennai city officials declared that the day when almost no water is left, had been reached, as all the four main reservoirs supplying water to the city had run dry. Two years of deficient monsoon rainfall, with a rainfall deficit of 55 percent, particularly in late 2017 and throughout much of 2018 had led to this crisis. This has impacted millions of people who are left with inconsistent access to water. This is said to be the case of current developed states like Karnataka and Maharashtra in the future. Karnataka has very small amounts of resources left and soon will be piling their hopes on Maharashtra to receive water. On the other hand, Maharashtra because of its size and location, is under immense pressure to provide not only to its residents but also neighbouring states. The rainfall in these 2 states has also started declining in the past few years which only has caused more problems.

Some of the other valuable points that are mentioned by the panellists are; controlling the use of water in the agriculture industry. Sugarcane, which is a crop that depends on water heavily, is grown in parts of the country that have a scarcity of supply. This reduces the availability of water for the people for their personal use; recycling and recharging should be the topmost priority of any water management organisation, i.e. filtering out the water received by rain and distributing that water to the households that don’t have access to groundwater; the yearly monsoon pattern shows that the rain is declining in most parts of India and this also should be a major concern; even though the government is planning on making new residential buildings for development, they are not checked about proper water consumption levels and are sometimes specified with uncertain sources of water so as to receive license to build those structures.

The last two years have been difficult for residents of India’s eastern city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu State. Monsoon rains have failed for two years and the city has braved a heat wave compounded by water scarcity.

On 19 June 2019, the state government announced that Day Zero—or the day when the city reservoirs were empty—had been reached. Local officials then announced that they would transport 10 million litres of water daily by train from 200 kilometres away to provide enough water, especially for the poor, to survive.

Chennai’s water stress is not unique to the city. From Cape Town, South Africa to Iran’s port city of Khorramshahr, individuals and communities in numerous countries worldwide have in recent years been suffering from water shortages.

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NITI Aayog is working on a plan to set-up desalination plants along India’s 7,800-km coastline, according to a report in The Economic Times. The plants will desalinate sea water which would then be supplied to population centres through a pipeline network.

This comes at a time when severe water shortages have been observed in major urban areas such as Chennai. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has made countrywide sufficient clean water supply by 2024 a top priority.

Read on…

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/niti-aayog-plans-setting-up-desalination-plants-along-7800-km-coastline-4183971.html

Prof. Manohar Khushalani appeared live in a program anchored by the charming Gargi Rawat, on the NDTV series, WE THE PEOPLE. with Co-panelists Raghav Chadha and VK Madhavan. There were also Videocons with Medha Patkar an Other from Chennai.

On We The People we talked about an an issue that concerns everyone – India’s impending water emergency. The crisis is all around us. Chennai is facing the worst water crisis it has ever seen. With lakhs of people depending on private water tankers as taps go dry, establishments have had to be shut down, children are skipping school and lining up for water. And while Chennai is the largest city facing a water crisis right now, there’s a drought like situation in almost half the country. Parts of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh too are reeling under the crisis. On this show, panelists talked about steps we can take to prevent an impending water emergency.

If you are really worried about the Water Crisis in India don’t miss this program. Click on the link below. It was telecast at 6pm Saturday, 29th June, 2019

Prof. Manohar Khushalani, Editor, OneVorld, was interviewed extensively by the wire service, ANI, on the looming Water crisis in India. His interview forms part of it’s report circulated to all newspapers and news media in India and abroad.

He advocated water harvesting at community and individual level, quoting his own example, about how he built his own water harvesting in his home, as far back as 2003

No drinking water will be available by 2030 if we don’t conserve now: Report

The government is depending upon the desalination in Chennai which is very expensive also however they forget that the earth is a limited planet and oceans will dry. What will we leave for our children and grandchildren? We may have a lot of money but we cannot ask our children to drink money instead of water. Using ocean water and desalination is not the solution but water harvesting is” said former director of National Water Academy Professor Manohar Khushalani.

“It is a collective responsibility of the government and people of the country to save water and contribute to increasing the groundwater levels,” he added.

Mr Khushalani is presently working as professor in Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi and has also authored books ”Irrigation Practice and Design in five volumes”. (Published by Oxford & IBH Sponsored by NBT)

“It is not very difficult and expensive to harvest rainwater. One can easily do it commonly in group housing societies or individually. We will just have to make our heart little bigger and more responsible to be thinking about our next generation,” the professor told ANI.

He has made a water harvesting structure inside his residence, in which he has been harvesting rainwater since 2003, helping the raise the groundwater level in his area.

“I made this water harvesting structure in 2003 when my sixty feet deep tube well dried up. I decided to put all rain water collected on my terrace into it. There are two conditions in doing rainwater harvesting. Number one, first rainwater should not go into it, secondly filtered water should go into the ground otherwise it will contaminate the groundwater. The rainwater which is collected on my terrace flows through a pipe which is connected to the bore. After sixty feet, the soil filters the water by itself. The water which falls from the terrace or from height should be harvested but not the water on the roads during rains because it carries lots of dirt with it which may lead to groundwater contamination,” he said.

Mr Khushalani further suggested that the regions which are facing drought should not do farming of sugarcane as it absorbs a lot of groundwater. “By becoming aware today we can avert the danger tomorrow,” he concluded.

To see the original report click on the link below

Manohar Khushalani Recommends Water Harvesting

The ANI report has been featured in a large number of newspapers such as Pioneer, NDTV, First Post, New Indian Express.

https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/no-drinking-water-will-be-available-by-2030-if-we-dont-conserve-now-report20190620014626/

http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2019/jun/20/no-drinking-water-will-be-available-by-2030-if-we-dont-conserve-now-1992810.html

http://www.pioneernews.in/21-indian-cities-will-run-out-of-groundwater-by-2020-report

https://www.firstpost.com/india/indias-metro-cities-will-run-out-of-groundwater-in-next-10-yrs-claims-niti-ayog-report-40-populace-will-have-no-access-to-drinking-water-by-2030-6850271.html

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/21-indian-cities-will-run-out-of-groundwater-by-2020-report-2056129

India’s largest desalination plan twas inaugurated in Chennai on Saturday the 31^st July. The facility will draw water from the Bay of Bengal, process it using the reverse osmosis technology and supply purified water to the city. The joint venture between IVRCL Infrastructures and Project Ltd and Befessa

Chennai Water Desalination Ltd RO Plant

of Spain, spread across 60 acres, has been built at a cost of  Rs 600-crore at Minjur. It can desalinate 100 million litres of water per day, sufficient for around 2 million people. Thus it would cater to half of Chennai’s population of about 4.5 million. What is most interesting is the fact that the plant will supply water to the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board at a cost of just about 5 paise per litre for the first 25 years. The competitive pricing is because the facility adopts an energy-conserving desalination process, According to CMWSSB officials yet another desalination plant with similar capacity is expected to come up in Tamilnadu by 2012.

Earlier, in January this year, Saudi Arabia’s national science agency announced a new initiative to build solar-powered desalination plants to reduce water and energy costs by 40 percent. For Saudi Arabia there had been no breakthrough in the cost of desalination. The gradual reduction in cost due to improvement in technology had been mostly offset by increased material and labor cost. The initiative will be carried out in several stages, and the first plant will be a small, 30,000 cubic meter per day facility in Al-Khafji. In comparison, the Shoaiba 3 project on Saudi Arabia’s west coast is the world’s largest plant, producing 880,000 m³/d .During the initiative’s second phase, a 100,000 m³/d plant will be built. Eventually a network of plants across the country.