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| Urban India drowning in sewage | | | Dr. Pragya Khanna | 2/8/2012 10:40:15 PM |
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If a new report is to be believed, India is drowning in its own sewage and turning its rivers into drains due to its ever-expanding cities. The Centre for Science and Environment, a 22-year-old New Delhi-based advocacy and research organization, has just released its seventh report entitled, "Excreta Matters: How urban India is soaking up water, polluting rivers and drowning in its own excreta". The two-volume report, which took three and a half years to research and write, includes surveys of water and wastewater management of 71 cities in India.
It is well known that urbanisation in India, persistent and unyielding as it is, will only grow. How can a nation administer its water needs, so that it does not drown in its own filth? This is what the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has enquired and tried to answer in the book. What has surprised them is the lack of information and records, research and understanding of this problem in the country.
Let us try to look at this issue, since water concerns us all. People in urban areas get water in their houses; they also discharge waste; and they see their rivers die. But the general public is not able to make the connection between flushing toilets and dying rivers because the common Indian man considers waste removal and its management as something to be tackled up by different people and agencies like Government, municipality, sanitation administration or sewage workers.
This is a startling fact that as a result of neglect, disregard and bad planning, many cities have turned their rivers into drains and culverts, and the people who live around them no longer remember that they were once pristine sources of water. It was found that there were innumerable instances when a city's drain, called a nullah nowadays, was in fact a river.
The residents of our capital city Delhi are familiar with the Najafgarh drain, which discharges the city's waste into the river Yamuna. But most of them do not know that this "drain" has its source in the lake Sahibi which is now almost dead. Buddha Nullah in Ludhiana is referred to as a drain because it is full of stink and waste. But not so long ago, the Buddha was called Buddha darya. It was a clean freshwater stream. A couple of decades have changed its appearance and name. The same is true about the Jammu region that had numerous such small streams that have now been converted into filthy drains, the glaring example is of Behlol stream or shall I call it Behlol nullah flowing through Gadigarh locality.
It is very true that the cities those are fortunate enough to have a river passing through them, have an additional dump for all their garbage. The state of the Yamuna River in Delhi is a testimony to this fact. The river practically doesn't flow at all. Expansive white deposits can be seen on their surfaces that prevent the flow. The deposits are nothing but toxic wastes that have reacted with the water. Practically no living creature lives in this section of the river.
However, should Indians be astounded? They have taken water from their rivers since ages and still take it for irrigation, domestic uses and for hydroelectric plants although today they give back nothing but waste. It is a hard reality that water no longer flows in India's rivers, just loads of excreta and industrial effluent.
There are innumerable sites with huge garbage dumps and heaps of stinking filth in our very own river Tawi; the river presents a spectacular view from a distance dividing the city of Jammu into two parts, however, on close inspection it has a different tale to tell.
Every city has the same old story it has ruined its surface water, it has diminished its ground water and it has no plan for managing its water or wastewater. It is the complete lack of data, research and understanding on this issue in the country.
Therefore, it will not be wrong to state that all the great rivers in India have something in common. They're filthy. As is true with all rivers passing through cities, they enter the area crystal clear but leave contaminated. In the process, heavy loads of biological and chemical pollutants usually enter waterways, to be consumed in some manner by the downstream user.
Since water issues are assigned to provincial governments in India, each one of them treats a river as its own, with little or no regard to the downstream (user) effects. Ecologists and conservationists have long demanded that rivers need to be treated as one entity, and not the property of seven states in seven different regions in the nation.Since 80 per cent of our population depends on 14 major rivers, there is dire need to examine the roles of Indian citizens and our government in this tragedy, and what we all need to do.
Another significant aspect is a weird incongruity that rivers have been given the place of pride in the Indian way of life. It is well documented that the worship of water occupied a prominent place in all the religions and early civilizations; water was regarded as a purifying, rejuvenating, as well as a soothsaying element, and was accordingly conceived of as inhabited by various beings. There is barely a ritual in a Hindu household where an offering isn't made to the gods; albeit by heaving a plastic bag filled with flowers and the like into the closest river or body of water. Several holy shrines are on the banks of a river, and indeed, rivers such as the Ganga and Yamuna are sacred to millions.
The quality of Ganga's water is gradually declining since many decades now. Not only it is unfit for drinking, but is also harmful if used for agricultural purposes. The level of coliform bacteria, a type of bacteria that indicates the purity of water, should ideally be below 50 for drinking and below 5,000 for agricultural use. The present level of coliform in the Ganga at Hardwar is 5,500. A study conducted by the Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board (UEPPCB) slotted river water into four categories: A: being fit for drinking, B: for bathing, C: for agriculture and D: for excessive pollution level. However, Ganga was given a definite D.
The population explosion which has led to industrialisation, urbanisation and poverty has put great pressure on the river bodies. Most of the river pollution in India is due to the careless disposal of industrial effluents, agricultural wastes (pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers), garbage dumps from commercial and residential areas, disposal of human faeces, urine and sewage which is directly added into the rivers. Population induced pressure on water is bound to grow in coming years. In fact, water paucity has often been cited as a possible cause of wars between riparian states (states sharing a water body). At some point, the clean water gulping flush technologies, which magnify the entire problem of sewage, will have to be replaced by alternatives. And the sooner these alternatives are examined, the better.
A firm, time-specific combination of such efforts could lead to an improvement of water quality in the rivers. But this is a complicated task, and requires a certain degree of development and precision of where things stand now, and where we are headed. And unless some serious steps are taken soon, Indian rivers will remain sewers.
What is the use of the costly and ambitious plans if they fail to spread a message across to the people? Where is the social awareness? The government plans remain one step removed from the main polluter: the average citizen. No amounts of sewage treatment plants, riverfront beautification drives and crematoria would leave a lasting impact unless the beneficiaries understand the significance of it all. Also, while technology is a key issue, not all technologies are equal to the job of cleaning up, if people continue to remain dirty and filthy. Social awareness was, and still remains, the greatest challenge. We haven't been able to do much on that front either. The lacks of proper sewage system in India's most of the cities are main culprit behind the killing of India's rivers. It is high time that we realize that rushing, roaring and meandering rivers down the valleys and mountain ranges are one of the major sources of living for many and are vital for our existence on this planet. Let's work to protect them in all possible ways! |
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