Water is life. In India, issues relating to water have become so complicated and confusing that some say no government can change things and we must expect continuing deterioration. Our laws on water are inadequate, water-basin planning and regulation are practically non-existent. The pricing of water is far below cost in almost every use; but the poor have little access to enough good water for life and livelihood. Ground-water levels in India have declined enormously in cities as well as rural areas and yet there is no ground-water regulation while agricultural procurement prices encourage changes in cropping patterns to more water intensity. There is no regulation of water, or of private supplies by tankers. In rural India, women and children walk miles to collect water. In urban India, the water quality in slums is poor. An important reason for high-school drop-out rates is the collection of water by children.
The United Nations Development Project published the first Human Development Index in its Human Development Report of 1990. It tries to measure the well-being of people, their quality of life and the opportunities for them to live better lives. It does this for each member-country of the UN, and measures their achievement on health, education and incomes, as well as the relative freedom from tyranny in each country. It does not accept the ‘trickle-down’ argument that gross domestic product growth by itself will lead to better lives for many people. The HDR does not measure environmental degradation and the depletion of natural resources. Each report has, in addition, focused on some specific aspect in more detail. This year the focus is on deprivation in access to water, necessary for life and for livelihood.
Water for life means delivering clean water, removing waste water and providing sanitation. Without these tasks being adequately performed, people and especially children fall ill (with diarrhoea among other diseases), and die. In 2004, of 60 million deaths worldwide, 10.6 million were of children below five years. The principal cause was poor water and sanitation. Developing countries had 5 billion cases of diarrhoea in children below age five each year, of which 1.8 million died. This is more than the deaths from tuberculosis or malaria. In India, 450,000 died from diarrhoea, avoidable if they had access to better water and sanitation. Even a small improvement in water and sanitation (for example, open latrines versus pit-latrines, not even flush-latrines) has a significant impact on reducing these deaths.
Water is also a productive resource shared within countries and across borders. It poses immense challenges to governments who must manage water equitably and efficiently. Agriculture and industry require large quantities of water. Household requirements are only 5 per cent of the total. The major users are industry and agriculture, which pollute fresh water with effluents, run-offs with pesticides and fertilizers. Growing urbanization, expected to be 50 per cent of the population by 2020, is another source of pollution of fresh water. Ground water is excessively used (India is believed to be the highest user), resulting in considerable depletion of water tables. The economically poor farmer has increasing difficulty in getting enough water from irrigation canals and even from shallow wells. The rich, who have better access to both surface and ground water, also pay a lot less for water — both for life and for livelihoods.
