Experts reject privatisation of water supply as panacea to Delhi’s woes (Hindi 22 August 2012)

Say Govt. must focus on making the most of available resources

As Delhi gets ready to implement public-private partnership models in the city to plug water and revenue leaks and ensure round-the-clock supply, water conservation experts want the Administration to look beyond dams and private companies and focus instead on water harvesting, recycling and off-channel reservoirs.

“Delhi has a very high per capita water supply, what it lacks is management,” pointed out Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, a network of individuals and organisations working on water-related issues.

Blaming the Delhi Jal Board, the utility that supplies water to the city, for failing to “democratise” its functioning, Mr. Thakkar said: “PPP projects have failed globally; it is shocking to see the Planning Commission push for a model which has not been successful anywhere.”

“No attempts have been made to address Delhi’s water problems -- poor quality, inequitable distribution, revenue and distribution losses. The Government instead is bringing in private companies that will only accentuate the existing problems,” he added.

Manoj Misra of non-government organisation Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has drawn up an exhaustive list of suggestions that can alleviate the city’s water woes. “We have to consider revision of the Master Plan together with other water conservation ideas to ensure water security for the city. For instance, Zone P II is part of the original flood plain of the Yamuna in Delhi. Situated on the northern portions of Delhi, it is higher than the rest of the city, which makes it ideal for consideration as a suitable location for off-channel reservoirs to store river water during the monsoon months. Being a part of the floodplain of the river it is unsuitable for permanent and planned human settlements. Zones O (Yamuna floodplains) and P II should be taken together and preserved as a water sanctuary,” he said.

Mr. Misra also suggests “strict protection” of the Delhi Ridge and the Yamuna floodplains in the city and restoration of “lost rivers, Sahibi and Barapula” and other water bodies in the city. “There are 22 storm water drains in the city and these must be restored from their current status of sewage drains. Rainwater harvesting, the way it is done in Chennai, should be made mandatory and a part of the city culture for not just new buildings but all the existing buildings within a strict time-frame. Storm water drains that are part of the rainwater harvesting and natural drainage system in the city must not be ‘covered and converted’ under any circumstances,” he said.

Experts also stress on water recycling and re-use. “What is being done in the name of harvesting is lip service. There is no restraint on pollution despite the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, enforced. No one is worried why the city’s 17 sewage treatment plants do not function to their full capacity. The whole focus seems to be on bringing in private players,” complained Mr. Thakkar.

Use of “grey water” can reduce the city’s dependence on raw water. “Imagine with almost 600 MGD of recycled grey water (of a total of around 850 MGD of available water) available for non-potable needs, would this city ever be short of adequate water?” questioned Mr. Misra.

On the issue of building new dams for ensuring more water for the city, Mr. Misra said the Government should consider exploring the option of raising off-channel reservoirs in Zone P II. “There are many cities (London in UK the most obvious example) in the world that today resorts to storing ‘storm time’ water from their rivers in such reservoirs. But before this option is considered it would be of utmost necessity to frame suitable payment (in perpetuity) arrangement for the affected people and farmers in form of payment for ecological/economic services (PES) that the city must be ready to pay to the adversely affected persons.

The advantage of this scheme will be that since Zone P II is at a higher elevation than the rest of the city, pumping costs from the reservoir will be minimal (gravity having taken care of most), if any,” he said.

Questioning the Government’s proposal to bring in private companies to improve the city’s water management, Mr. Misra said: “Delhi remains one of the better supplied cities in the world in terms of its water needs. At 50 gallons (220 litres) average supplies per person per day as the DJB itself claims, there is no reason for the city to ask for more.

But what is actually required is better management of the available water in the city.

And before anyone mistakes this for privatisation of water supplies in the city, we believe that water as an essential life sustaining entity should never be allowed to become a planned part of the market system. It is part of the State’s fundamental duties to provide wholesome and adequate water to its citizens and non-humans alike and this duty cannot and should not be outsourced.”

Dead River Became Alive (22 August 2012 Amar Ujala)

Near their largest dam lie the driest villages (Hindustan Times 21 August 2012)

What does it mean to live a few kilometres away from the biggest dam in your region but not have any of its water in your village? Ask the villagers of Paithan, for whom the administration's inexplicable water economics hurts more than the drought almost every year.

Paithan, to the world outside, is home to the famous Paithani saree that Maharashtrian brides desire in their trousseau; Paithan is also home to the Jayakwadi dam, one of the biggest dams in Maharashtra. The proximity of the dam underscores the irony of their water woes.

A major part of Paithan's vast rural belt, a few kilometres away from the dam, doesn't get water from this dam. Instead, ironically, water from the Jayakwadi dam is carried to areas far away from the dam: Aurangabad city, neighbouring district of Jalna and even Parbhani, lying 208 km away.

The dam, with a width of nearly 10 km, is one of the biggest in central Maharashtra. It can store up to 2,170.94 million cubic metres of water.

Despite this, villages around the dam itself are dry. This skewed distribution perplexes locals who ask the obvious question: why, at least some water from the Jayakwadi dam cannot be routed to their villages that regularly witness drought-like conditions. Says Sunil Rathod, an ex-sarpanch of the Tekdi tanda village, a hamlet in the Paithan district, "We are a few kilometres away from the dam, but are forced to depend on wells and bore wells for our daily supply of water."

Locals said that a village in the area can get water from the dam if it enjoys some political backing. For instance, Dongaon, next to Tekdi tanda, has direct pipelines from the dam.

Rajiv Shinde, tehsildar, admits that the lack of water to Paithan's villages is a problem, but says that such villages are covered by 'individual schemes' — a bureaucratic term to mean steps taken to ensure water supply to a single village.

At Tekri tanda, however, even this term is a fig leaf. In the name of a scheme, the government has laid a pipeline from a well, a kilometre and a half away. Nothing wrong, except that it's a 0.5 inch pipeline, supplying barely enough for a few families.

Tekdi tanda's anguish is shared by most villages around the dam, which have been deprived of the water that they think is rightfully theirs. Porgaon, a village with 1,800 residents, has to depend on one government well, which is drying up fast.

Pradeep Purandare, a retired associate professor from the Water and Land Management Institute (WALMI) in Aurangabad said, "Villages that have a strong political network can draw more than what they need, while those lacking a network are left to fend for themselves."

‘Why Yamuna being used as dump yard? (Times of India 17 August 2012)

NEW DELHI: After years of efforts to save Yamuna from getting choked by pollution, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) about the steps it had taken to reduce pollution in the river.

With each of the trifurcated Municipal Corporation of Delhi branches shifting blame on to the Delhi government and Delhi Jal Board for the present state of the river, a bench of Justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said if their claims were true, then why was the river being used as a garbage dump.

But it focused on the statutory powers of the CPCB and asked counsel Vijay Panjwani to list the steps the board had taken to keep the river free of pollutants.

The apex court bench asked the counsel to inform the court in two weeks on the steps it had taken to enforce its statutory powers to protect the river.

Plan to save the Ganga going down the drain (The Hindu 15 August 2012)

PTI A devotee taking a dip in the polluted waters of river Ganga in Allahabad. File Photo

Crores of rupees being spent on saving the Ganga from pollution does not seem to be working as bacterial contamination in India’s most sacred river has crossed the maximum permissible limit at several key cities due to discharge of sewage, Environment and Forests Minister Jayanthi Natarajan said in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

“The levels of bacterial contamination in terms of faecal coliform are reported to be exceeding the maximum permissible limit at a number of locations,” she said.

“There is no doubt that our holy river is very polluted, and the flow of the river also is not to the extent that it ought to be to maintain the purity and the continuous ecological flow of the river as we desire … All along the river, the industrial effluent accounts for about 20 per cent; 80 per cent is basically the domestic untreated sewage which flows out from the cities that lie along the river Ganga,” she said replying to a question in the Upper House.

Pointing out that lack of coordination between the Central and State agencies was affecting proper implementation of various projects, Ms. Natarajan said: “Money is allotted for sewage treatment plants and for central effluent treatment plants. But unfortunately, all those plants do not work, perhaps, because of lack of electricity and perhaps, because the network of sewers is not connected to the central plants in that particular city.”

The Minister, however, said the water quality in terms of BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) values was reported to have improved, compared to the pre-Ganga Action Plan (GAP) water quality on major monitoring locations.

The government is implementing GAP since 1985 for undertaking pollution abatement activities in the identified polluted stretches through implementation of works like interception and diversion of sewage and setting up treatment plants.

The project, involving an estimated cost of Rs. 7,000 crore, has been approved under the National Ganga River Basin Authority, while Rs. 1,441 crore has been released for the implementation of various pollution abatement works in towns along the Ganga, and sewage treatment capacity of 1,091 million litres per day has been created.

Pesticide residues found

Meanwhile, Minister of Rural Development, Drinking Water and Sanitation Jairam Ramesh said residues of different pesticides have been found in groundwater in the key Ganga river basin States of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Quoting an IIT-Delhi study, he said the groundwater in Palla-Burari region near Delhi was found to contain moderately high levels of pesticides, some of them residues of long-banned pesticides such as DDT.

He also pointed out that a larger study on the entire Ganga basin covering Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar has shown that different organochloride pesticide residues are present in different regions of the river basin depending upon land use pattern.

“HCH, a by-product of agricultural insecticide lidane, was detected mostly in the mountainous stretch of Uttarakhand. The water in Uttar Pradesh contained more of endosulfan residues, while the Bihar region contained more of aldrin group of pesticides,” he added.

Amar Ujala 15 August 2012

Green minister's no to new hydel projects on Ganga (Hindustan Times 08 August 2012)

With cloud burst creating havoc in Uttarakhand, the environment ministry has decided not to consider new hydel projects and review the existing projects ones on river Ganga and its tributaries in the state.

There has been a view that construction of dams for hydel projects on tributaries of river Ganga such Ssi Ganga has resulted in blocking the flow of water there by creating havoc for locals and property. Around 12 people died and about 50 went missing after the cloud burst in higher reaches of the state.

Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan told HT it was difficult to “envisage any new hydel project on river Ganga and its tributaries” considering increasing concern over its flow.

On the projects under implementation, the ministry will take a view after a cumulative environment impact assessment of around 77 projects on river Ganga and its tributaries is done. “We have to do a proper appreciation of environmental aspects to restore flow and purity of the national river,” the minister.

The government has already constituted a committee of experts under planning commission member B K Chaturvedi to examine impact of hydel projects on river Ganga and recommend remedial measures based on report of a consortium of Indian Institutes of Technology. The committee has met once and deliberated on the key aspects of Ganga for future deliberations.

“I don’t want to pre-judge work of that committee,” she said, “my person view as Environment Minister is that there cannot be more hydel projects on river Ganga”.

The flash floods has come as a blessing in disguise to those opposing hydel projects on river Ganga and has put the government on the back-foot. The government scientific experts attributed environmental degradation including cutting of forests in Uttarakhand hills as a prime reason for cloud burst having such an impact.

The view of locals that slow pace of rehabilitation and restoration work at National Thermal Power Corporation’s Lohari Nag Pala dam --- scrapped by Central government in 2010 --- contributed to the devastation in certain regions has been backed by the ministry.

The Central government has provided Rs. 200 crore to NTPC to restore the Lohari Nag Pala sites to its original but the work has been going at a slow pace. “I will be writing to Power Minister (Veerappa Moilly) on the issue of the restoration work,” Natarajan said.