The Hindu : Women's help sought to ease water crisis

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 06, 2003

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Women's help sought to ease water crisis

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MARCH 5. In a unique scheme for drinking water management, the Delhi Government has decided to seek the help of women to help tide over any summer crisis. Apprehending a severe summer, it has decided to set up "Pani Panchayats'' of women across the Capital, mainly in rural areas, to store, manage and distribute water at the local level.

Announcing this at a press conference to unveil the Summer Action Water Plan, the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, said that the five-member committees would be formed as part of "Pani Panchayats'' which would manage drinking water. In addition, it has been decided to install plastic water tanks of 1,000 to 5,000 litres capacity in rural areas, slum clusters, unauthorised colonies and other water scarcity areas with the help of the local people and MLAs.

Conceding that the coming summer would not be easy as far as the water situation is concerned, the Chief Minister said the "Pani Panchayats'' could also have some other eminent members of the area but the authorities would prefer to have an all-woman show as females have a better knowledge and capacity to handle water-related crises. These women would be provided with the keys to the water tanks to ensure that neither the water is stolen nor contaminated by some miscreants. It is hoped that substantial relief would come to areas which are covered under this scheme which was being adopted in Delhi for the first time.

At the same time, the Chief Minister also announced the decision to set up control rooms in her office to cater to complaints relating to drinking water and related problems. These control rooms would start functioning from April 15 and will work till the situation demands. Stating that the rain water harvesting schemes of the Delhi Government had been a big success, Ms.Dikshit said that 163 rain water harvesting structures are recharging the ground water aquifers successfully by harvesting 4.50 lakh cubic meters of rain water from around 8 lakh sq meters of rooftop and compound area.

In order to promote the concept of rainwater harvesting and water conservation, financial incentive to the extent of 50 per cent of the total cost of the rain water harvesting structure or Rs. 50,000, whichever is less, has been announced by the Delhi Government for the Resident Welfare Associations and Cooperative Group Housing Societies of the worst affected areas of South and South-West Delhi. The Chief Minister said that in order to provide water tankers round the clock, it had been decided to employ the services of hopping crew during the summer season. This would ensure that water tankers operate day and night with different crew unlike the past usage of around eight to ten hours.

In fact, Mr. Tripathi said an analysis of the total number of complaints received during April to July last year revealed that the situation got worse when there was power failure or the temperatures soared. Any disruption in power supply badly affects these areas which are heavily dependent upon water from Delhi Jal Board's tube-wells. In fact, the water situation is remarkably poor in South Delhi as far as availability, supply and complaints are concerned.

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