Ramon Magsaysay awardee Rajendra Singh, better known as ‘The Waterman of India’, on Friday said that community-driven, and de-centralised water management solutions were the answers to the country’s water crisis, adding that the democracy today was not people-driven, but corporate-driven. He said that the problem was global, but the solution to it was local.
Delivering a talk on “Citizen-centric Advocacy and Water Literacy in India” at Management Development Institute here under the aegis of School of Public Policy and Governance, Dr. Singh, emphasised that humans had the right to take from nature, but to take without giving back was not sustainable. He said there was a need to work at the nature’s pace and in co-ordination with it, adding that the water-policy must be people-centric.
He advocated the need for sustainable development, free from destruction and displacement.
Referring to his community-based efforts in water harvesting in Rajasthan for more than four decades, Dr. Singh said that around 12,000 waterbodies were built leading to recharge of 2.5 lakh tube wells and reverse migration of around 17 lakh people. Sharing data on water crisis in India, Dr. Singh, also the winner of Stockholm Water Prize, said that in the current year, 190 districts were flooded while 365 districts across 17 districts faced drought. He said that 72% of India faced high to extremely high water stress.
In reply to a query from the audience, Dr. Singh asserted that solution did not lie in the linking of the rivers, but in water harvesting. He said that in metro cities such as Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad and Meerut, where the problem of depleting groundwater was even more severe, rain water should be harvested and not allowed to be mixed with sewage. He also advocated the need for “water literacy” movement in the urban areas to create awareness.
Dr. Singh, in his two-hour-long lecture, emphasised the need for congruity between the crop and the rain patterns since around 80% of the water was used in agriculture. He also expressed concern over the fact that water in 2.65 lakh villages across the country was not fit for drinking and said that the solution lied in the nature for it.
‘River rights’
Dr. Singh said that it was high time to talk about the “river rights” and not just the human rights, adding that even our Constitution had failed to protect the rights of the rivers. He said that India had an age-old tradition of respect for water and can offer solutions to the world.
