Water

Sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction. We are becoming a dystopian, apocalyptic world while turning a blind eye to the utter destruction and blatant disregard for water—and this is causing much anguish and suffering.

All it needs is an unusually heavy rain shower in a concreted-city, to reveal the ugly reality of how we treat our water. A glance at the recent news on the toxic foams in Hosur, Kelavarapally Dam….. ??Yamuna River, Delhi….. Kukatpally, Telangana….... Varthur / Bellandur Lakes, Karnataka. Khari, Gujarat…. Indrayani River, Pune, is quite alarming. It is no anymore, a story that is happening “somewhere”, “far from me”, but it is everywhere around us.

And it is ugly and despicable.

The conundrum faced by a developing India is that to become a 5 Trillion GDP economy by 2027 (that would allow us to develop and grow our Human Capital/ employment generation), the water needs of our country would also jump multi-fold, while keeping sustainable sanitary and drinking water needs of a burgeoning population. Our water resources are already super-stretched, and woefully inadequate in meeting both quantity and quality needs. Without water, every Industry be it Steel, Cement, or Power would come to a grinding halt before it starts affecting food production.

Toxic foams are nature’s stark reminders. To make us see things that we deliberately pretend to look away. Toxic foams are a heady cocktail of noxious industrial wastes and harmful chemicals. They carry deadly pathogens, together with phosphate-heavy detergents and surfactants – causing eutrophication. Excessive nutrients and growth of algae, depletion of oxygen levels leading to death of fish and other aquatic life, etc. A perfect recipe for disaster.

The legendary Ganga is indeed supposed to wash away our ‘sins’. There are, however, limits to how far things can go unchecked like this. When abused, the same water can be deadly – causing widespread disaster through water-borne diseases. While the UN charter recognizes the human right to water and sanitation, this is often overlooked and ignored either consciously or unconsciously, moving us increasingly closer to a major catastrophe that is waiting to happen. In fact, it is already happening as sporadic events around us. We only need to wake ourselves up and first accept and acknowledge the truth.

During Chatth Puja in Yamuna, people performing the Puja were soaked in toxic foam, oblivious to the risks associated with it. The toxic foam reminds me of the poison that emerged during the legendary churning of the “milky” ocean. This toxic poison needs to be cleansed off before the nectar of immortality can emerge from the very same waters. It is high time that we take the responsibility into our own hands, at least for the sake of the future of generations to come.

The case of Bengaluru as a heavily urbanized city, which had its own natural lakes and seasonal streams, has now been reduced to a city with perennial streams of sewage crisscrossing the city, and with toxic foams during the rainy seasons. Even so-called luxury apartments, from prestigious real-estate brands, faced water shortages due to poor/unsustainable water management solutions. ?The residents ended up paying visits to nearby malls to meet their daily needs, despite having invested in a modern apartment with ‘all amenities’.

So, what is the solution to the water crisis faced by urbanized cities like Bengaluru? While the National Building Code recommends 135 liters per capita per day, (in reality is somewhere between 200-250 liters), nearly all of this water ends up as sewage with little or inadequate treatment turning it highly unsuitable for any other uses. With proper treatment techniques such as aeration, nitrification, and de-nitrification, coupled with technologies such as filtration membranes, the same water can be sustainably treated and reused. It is recommended that such treatment of sewage be done in a decentralized manner, closer to the sources of generation, thereby can be easily re-used in the same place where it was generated.

All this requires, at first, a collective acknowledgment of the dire state of affairs and acceptance of the need to make fundamental changes. This requires the formulation of laws and policies to adequately deal with water pollution, and in parallel, strong regulation to ensure enforcement of the laws. The role of citizens and key decision makers is also key in ensuring adequate infrastructure building for treating and re-using water sustainably. We are just a few steps away from a widespread disaster.