by Alice Walton:
An umbrella tumbles from the old man’s hands, a smile spreading slowly across his dripping face. He watches it fill with water. Men, women and children crowd the flooded streets, carrying pots, cups, and hats to gather the gift of water falling from the sky. In the midst of these idyllic images, a message scrolls across the bottom of the TV screen: “Rainwater belongs to each of us, but how do we keep and share?”
Water is a plentiful blessing in this short commercial, produced by the Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment (CSE), a public interest organization that lobbies for environmental issues in India. The compelling ad is a response to increasingly worrisome water supply issues in Delhi. The vast and crowded capital of India struggles to provide enough water to its neighborhoods, where citizens rely on communal taps that draw from a limited municipal groundwater source. CSE promotes rainwater harvesting, the gathering of rainwater, to supplement the city’s ever-dwindling water supply. The ad presents a blunt conclusion in the final shot: “Rainwater harvesting: Solve your water problem yourself.” Where the government is incapable of supplying the people, CSE suggests, individuals must look to alternative methods to fill in the gap.
The message may seem harsh, but the current water supply system in Delhi begs for change, and it is becoming increasingly obvious that the government will do little to improve it. While the wealthy see running water gush to their sinks every day, most of Delhi must wait their turn at the communal taps, uncertain whether they will be able to gather enough water for basic needs. The Delhi Jal Board, the city’s water municipality, supplies 696 million gallons of water per day, but some estimate Delhi consumes as much as 1,280 million gallons daily. In this parched city, access to water is a privilege, not a right.
Paralyzed in the Past
The Basti, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in Delhi, stands disconnected from the modern world. No cars fit through its narrow, dirt alleyways, where women scrub laundry with rocks and young children wander the streets begging for a spare rupee. Here, most families share the public taps, yet cooperation is not always forged by this communal burden. “Women wait in line to get their share from the tap, but there are arguments if anyone takes someone’s share.” explained Praveen Abdul Kaleem, a 21-year-old resident of the Basti. “Sometimes the argument gets so heated, the police get called in.”
And sometimes, there is no water to share. “The biggest problem with the water supply happens in the hot and dry season,” said Guari Patel, a maidservant and mother of four who relies on a weak tap outside her home. “Sometimes it doesn’t come until the night; sometimes not for a day or two. When it doesn’t come, there’s nothing to do but be patient.”
Located in a region with few standing bodies of water, Delhi has always struggled to provide water for its 17 million inhabitants. The city still uses the colonial system of centralized distribution and pays the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to pipe water into Delhi. But centralized distribution is archaic and inefficient. “There are huge losses in centrally-operated systems,” said Salahuddin Saiphy, assistant coordinator of community water management and rainwater harvesting at CSE. “It is extremely inefficient to import water 4,000 kilometers.”
The government recognizes the difficulties of this centralization and acknowledges that the water supply is inadequate. “There is insufficient water for the people of Delhi,” said Kaanchan Azad, who serves as information officer for Delhi’s chief minister, Sheila Dikshit. But he explained that the city cannot easily remedy the situation: “We are answerable to the problem, but we don’t always have rights. We import water from other states, but they can decide to stop it.” At the mercy of other states, Delhi’s government stands paralyzed by a system dating back to British India.
An Organic Solution
While the Delhi government perpetuates the inefficiencies of this colonial relic, CSE and other NGOs across the country have proposed rainwater harvesting as an organic solution to provide water to the citizens of Delhi. “Rainwater harvesting technology is very basic and decentralized to individual households. It facilitates a larger philosophy of water management,” said Pradip Saha, also of CSE.
Rainwater harvesting systems, based on ancient techniques that irrigated India for centuries before the colonial period, would streamline the vast amount of water that usually turns into runoff. A rooftop of 50 square meters receives approximately 30,550 liters of rainfall each year. With a simple collection and drainage system, 18,330 liters of that water could be harvested to directly replenish the groundwater source or could be stored for later use, according to a May 26 article in The Times of India. Saiphy estimates that if rainwater harvesting were instituted on a massive scale, 450 billion liters of water per year could be reclaimed in Delhi, supplying the city with one-third of its yearly water needs.
Still, the government remains only partially committed to the idea. Although laws ensure that rainwater harvesting facilities are installed on all new buildings, the city has been postponing the deadline for the rooftops of old buildings to be converted to harvesting systems since 2001. This lack of action comes as no surprise, said Saha at CSE. “We can’t trust the government only, because it has failed miserably over the years.” In a country known for a massive bureaucracy left over from British rule, people have learned not to expect change from the government.
In its stead, CSE has tried to lead by example, implementing projects to demonstrate the simple changes Delhi residents could enact to make rainwater harvesting a legitimate alternative to municipal taps. In 2002, CSE set up a chain of rainwater harvesting systems throughout Delhi to create an urban model of harvesting, which can be adapted to different styles of buildings. CSE also created a corps of water engineering experts who can help concerned residents convert their homes to the system.
The proposed rainwater harvesting technologies provide organic solutions for India—a return to pre-colonial methods better suited to the country. Water collected can be stored by a single family for personal use, thus easing the load on communal taps, or it can systematically drain from rooftops to recharge groundwater so that the pumps have more water to offer the neighborhood when needed. Harvesting rainwater could lift a burden from the overstretched bureaucracy, transform individuals from passive recipients of the municipal supply to active community members, and turn waste into veritable liquid gold.
Not Enough
On its website, CSE assures its readers that rainwater harvesting is a simple and cheap solution to the mismanagement of water resources at a higher level. It surpasses the archaic government system to involve the citizen directly in water acquisition. However, the most desperate citizens lack the technology to obtain water even today. As Patel explained, when water fleetingly arrives at the taps, it is not easy to gather enough to last. “We try to store it in large containers,” she said. “But some of the poorest people don’t even have those. What can they do?”
This dilemma is left unanswered by CSE’s campaign. Television commercials and informative websites may encourage wealthy philanthropists to change their ways, and CSE must be lauded for its persistent and innovative advocacy. But rainwater harvesting, while promising, is not yet accessible to the citizens of the Basti. For those who need water the most, true change may remain a pipe dream for some time to come.
Alice Walton is a junior History and International Studies double major in Pierson College and is the events coordinator for the Globalist.