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.

Professor Manohar Khushalani was invited on a panel discussion on ABP News with the anchor Romana Israr Khan on the segment ‘Samvidhan Ki Shapat’, on Monday, the 18th of November at 5 PM. 

The panel began with an introduction about the political twist in the heated pre-election environment on the report on the quality of water in Delhi released by Ram Vilas Paswan, the Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public distribution. The claims of terrible water quality were refuted and questioned by Arvind Kejriwal, of the Aam Aadmi Party. 

(Professor Manohar Khushalani with Mr. Harish Khurana, Mr. Haroon Yusuf, Mr. Raghav Chaddha and the anchor Romana Israr Khan)

Along with Professor Manohar Khushalani, the ex-director of National Water Academy, Mr. Harish Khurana, the spokesperson for BJP, Mr. Raghav Chaddha, the spokesperson for AAP and Mr. Haroon Yusuf, the spokesperson for INC were present in the panel debate.

The debate opened with Mr. Chaddha claiming that Mr. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the Minister of Jal Shakti had previously reported in September that the quality of Delhi’s water fared even better than the water quality in Europe and that Mr. Manoj Tiwari had agreed to the claims. AAP refuted the claims saying the samples were selectively chosen and misconstrued to present a defeating image, citing political reasons.  It is important to remember that the World Health Organization states that 80% of India’s groundwater is contaminated by various organic and inorganic pollutants and that India is ranked 20th out of 122 countries in WaterAid’s water quality index.  Mr. Khurana refuted the previous report by Minister of Jal saying his statements are being distorted to suit a narrative and the state of India’s water quality is grim and unfortunate. This discussion revolving Delhi’s water quality is of immense importance as approximately 2439 people have lost their lives in 2018 alone to various water-borne diseases such as Chlorella, Typhoid, Hepatitis amongst others. Mr. Manohar elaborated on the technicalities behind report finding and lauded the authenticity of the Bureau of Indian Standards but went on to state how 11 reports alone weren’t enough to gauge the quality of water, especially citing the lack of information surrounding the report.  A very significant point was bought to notice by Mr. Manohar who reminded us of the importance Air and Water quality holds to the residents of every area, how previously our surface water was clean and the storm-water drains created during the British era were perfectly functional. But with the advent of covered up drains and Unauthorized colonies, Chemical farming, usage of fertilizers has led to a decrease in the quality of water and improper sewage system has caused our water to pollute. 

The extremely heated and informative discussion ended with anchor divulging into the importance of Air and Water quality to the standard of living of the citizens of the country, and how it is important that the politicians look beyond the politics and genuinely improve the quality for the people. You can watch the entire discussion and find more information here- Panel Discussion on water

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