Since our childhood we have been warned of the ever depleting natural resources and most importantly drinking water. Unplanned urbanization; exploding population and consumerism are certainly taking their toll. I remember my early childhood in Patna, taking cloth bags or jhola to the local grocery shops for buying vegetables, sugar, salt, masala and biscuits were the norm rather than an ecological fad. The provisions would be weighed and packed in paper bags made from old newspaper and books. Polythene was unheard of and unseen till some point in my growing up when it just became ubiquitous.
We would sell our old newspaper, books, plastic bottles, glass jars, nonfunctioning tube-lights and electric bulbs to scavenger boys who would collect the old articles door to door. Tight fitting piece of clothing would be passed on to the younger lot in the family; old clothes would be used as sleeping suits and finally would be spoilt and torn apart during Holi, the festival of colours. The torn clothes would serve as mop for a very long time in the household. We recycled everything. I would have taken my old rubber slippers to the cobbler at least 5 times before discarding them. Same would be true for my shoes.
These extreme conservation practices were not necessarily out of our consciousness about the environment; love for our mother earth or any of those traits from responsible citizen charter but affordability. Average household could not afford to be wasteful with their limited means. Thanks to the liberalization and capitalism; households which once used to be content with a gross income of 5000 rupees per month, find it a struggle to manage with an income of 5000 rupees per day!
We call it inflation; we say that the value for money has gone down; the purchasing power of rupee has gone south. We were able to buy a lot in those good old days. All this is true along with the fact that if I start having a lifestyle that I had in my childhood; I would probably be able to live on a tenth of my monthly expenditures.
There is another aspect to it. If I stop longing for those gadgets; changing that watch, upgrading that smartphone; going for bigger, sleeker HD Flat screen TV or changing furniture and upholstery of my house every six months; probably the big companies will go into slump; they will bring down the markets; economy will fall apart; people employed in these luxury industries would lose employment; They will pull out India’s name from BRICS; we will be out of the league of progressive countries. Probably America and China will attack India vent out their frustration and disgust for India being such a pull-down. We pay the price of modernization. Capitalism looks like riding a running lion with no way to step down.
Anyways; the purpose of me writing this blog is a question that sprung in my mind while watching these news channels and knowing of the worsening water crisis we are facing in most of the big cities in India. Mainly the two cities close to my heart; Delhi and Bengaluru.
Is the water crisis really that hard to crack? We are surrounded on 3 sides by water still we do not have access to portable water. I read reports about new economic corridors being built between Mumbai and Delhi. Is it not possible that we lay big water pipeline along Mumbai-Delhi highway? It should be something like the oil pipelines we lay for transporting oil; albeit much cheaper and simple. Pump the sea water from Mumbai in this pipe all the way to Delhi! Identify naturally occurring rocky reservoirs on the way and reinforce them appropriately so that they can be used for storing water. Fill all these open tanks and lakes on the way from Mumbai to Delhi. This should result in lots of evaporation of the sea water filled in lakes and tanks and hopefully should increase the rainfall in the area. The rain water would be fresh distilled water and not salty. This will increase the water table in the area and also increase the green cover. Spread these water pipes to the deserts of Rajasthan. Have very robust arrangement for rain harvesting and make sure that the rain water doesn’t drain back in the sea water containing lakes. These sea water reservoirs should be land locked like Dead sea and should not have any connection with water source. In 5-10 years of time; when our rain harvested tanks get filled with sweet water; the sea water reservoirs can be allowed to be emptied by evaporation (and no replenishment by pumping sea water). We probably would be able to extract the salt by scrapping the bottom of these reservoirs commercially.
If the Dutch can claim land from sea by building dykes; why cannot we reclaim fertile land and forests from Thar desert?
This could be applied to Bangalore with much less effort. Bangalore is just 150 km from Sea! And maybe we will put an end to the acute fresh water crisis that India is facing for good. It might have a ROI period of 30 years; but this should definetly deliver.
Tell me guys am I missing a point here?
