More and more water now means no more water later

As per Article 21 of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed in the Indian Constitution, each citizen has right to clean drinking water. But each citizen does not get it.About 85% of rural development is depended on water--agriculture,poultry farming,dairy farming.And any deficiency  in water means no production. Today 16% of rural households do not have drinking water, and women carry water from long long distances.

Over use of resource.Irrigation facility is provided to farms--loans for pump sets, subsidised fuel for motors, free electricity for pumps and the ground water is extracted more than it should be. The result is that the water table is reduced considerably and we are running out of water which is a precious natural resource.Land ownership rights define that the water under the land owned, belongs to the owner. But water table is a common resource, and we do not know how to stop its extraction. How to make the people understand the absolute time limits we have because water scarcity is coming soon.
No time is given for replenishing or recharging.The"Ground water Bill" is not enforced; and we do not know  how to enforce it The are 25 million tube wells in India which constantly use-up this precious resource.A web-based groundwater information system has been developed by the Indian Government, and we know the the stark reality of the crisis. 40% of India has traditional method of storing water--water tanks, wells etc. These traditional methods allowed recharging of the ground water and did not use up the water table quickly as tube wells with motors do.

We had encouraged wrong growth.With increased use of electricity and subsidised farm equipments have resulted in reducing the water table to minimum levels.As a matter of fact we have facilitated the acute scarcity.As industrialisation progresses, groundwater gets polluted. It becomes toxic with chemicals emitted by factories. Even pesticides and fertilisers make the groundwater toxic.
Global warming has resulted in melting of our glaciers at a fast pace and no new snows are accumulating now.Rainfall has reduced because of deforestation.Forests attract rain-giving clouds.The few quick showers run-off the land and are not soaked because of lack of forests.

Water shortage is going to get acute in the future.Over use of water now without conserving and without allowing allowing replenishment means no water in future.We have the National Water policy of 2002 after the one made in 1987; and we have the Environmental Policy of 2005,to combat the reduction of ground water table.But how to implement it?How to control usage?We have given everyone the technology to draw water from the water table.This technology is like a genie.We cannot contain the genie now as it has left the bottle and is beyond our control.